Left-wing activists invaded the office of the Kohelet Policy Forum on Sunday in Jerusalem, targeting the free-market think tank that came up with most of the judicial reforms embraced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The reforms are on hold now, after Netanyahu declared a pause in the legislation to allow for more time for negotiation with opposition parties, after weeks of disruptive protests. But Israel’s left-wing activists have not left much room for compromise; on the contrary, they have gone on the offensive.

The Times of Israel reported:

The protesters from a women-led activist group called “Breaking Walls” barged into Kohelet’s offices with signs reading, “There’s no God for racists” and “Kohelet hates the poor.”

The activists said the conservative think tank “is advancing an agenda that hurts the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, public housing, and welfare.”

…

The protesters initially arrived at the Kohelet offices with a bouquet of flowers, saying they were bringing a delivery to the organization’s management. When a security guard opened the door they burst into the office and remained there until police removed them. Some of the protesters were taken in for questioning.

(For more on the Kohelet Forum, see a recent interview by Jonathan S. Tobin of the institute’s founder, Moshe Koppel.)

As Breitbart News has noted, the judicial reforms largely parallel existing practice in the Untied States. The most controversial reform, allowing the Knesset (legislature) to override the Supreme Court on a majority vote, has been disavowed by Kohelet, amid speculation that Netanyahu intended to use it as a bargaining chip. 

Some Israelis fear that reforms to the judiciary, until now a bastion of left-wing power, would allow religious parties to pass laws mandating that the Israeli state follow Jewish religious doctrine. Netanyahu has denied that this is the case, pointing out that his own party, the Likud, has the first gay Knesset speaker. 

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.