120,000 Israelis Gather in Tel Aviv to Protest Netanyahu Government

Some 120,000 demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv to protest the government on Saturday evening and its proposal to overhaul the left-leaning judiciary.

Smaller protests took place at the same time in other Israeli cities.

The protest was attended by several opposition figures, including former prime minister Yair Lapid who said: “People who love the country have come here today to protect its democracy and to defend its courts.”

Former defense minister and IDF chief, Benny Gantz, also attended.

Famed Israeli author David Grossman, known for his left-wing politics, addressed the rally, saying, “Now is the hour of darkness. Now is the moment to stand up and cry out: This land is in our souls. What happens in it today, will determine what it will be and who we and our children will become.”

He warned that Israel will “cease to be” if the government plans judicial reform go through.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s proposal for reform includes changes to the way in which judges are elected, which is currently done by an independent committee with little input from political representation, and redefining the influence that the judicial branch can have over the executive branch, including a controversial “override clause” that would allow the Knesset to re-legislate laws that the Supreme Court had struck down, pending a 61-MK majority.

Levin also seeks to curb the use of the so-called “reasonableness measure” by which the Supreme Court can strike down any law or government action it deems “unreasonable.” For example, the court ruled it “unreasonable” to allow religious Jews to pray on the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – because doing so would anger the Arab world.

Moshe Ya’alon, former defense minister, described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as a “dictatorship of criminals.”

“A state in which the prime minister will appoint all of the judges, there’s a name for it: dictatorship,” he said.

Advocates of the reform have claimed that it would correct a power grab by the Supreme Court and restore a balance of power to the executive branch.

Netanyahu on Sunday fired Shas party leader and key ally Aryeh Deri, ending his tenure both as Health Minister and Interior Minister, after the Supreme Court ruling deemed his appointment “unreasonable to the extreme” in light of his convictions over tax offenses.

Netanyahu said the court’s ruling left him with no choice and that it was “with a heavy heart, much regret, and the most terrible feeling” that he was forced to let his longtime ally go.

Netanyahu said he would make use of Deri’s “considerable talents” and appoint him as a prominent coalition official, even if he was barred from a ministerial position.