Thursday evening tens of thousands of Israelis participated at a large demonstration in central Jerusalem, waving Israeli flags, dancing and singing. At first glance, the demonstration could have resembled those that have been organized every Saturday since January to protest against the justice reform proposed by the right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. On Thursday, however, protesters took to the streets of Jerusalem to hold up the Netanyahu government and its reform, which the Israeli parliament should return to discuss in the next few days.
Il Times of Israel writes that according to various estimates there were between 150,000 and 200,000 demonstrators in Jerusalem on Thursday, “a number of people similar to those who demonstrate every Saturday night against the attempt to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court”. These are very significant numbers for Israel, a country in which just over 9 million people live: taking the most conservative estimate, i.e. 150,000 demonstrators, as if one million people had taken to the streets in Italy.
The demonstration in favor of the Netanyahu government in the square in front of the Israeli parliament, Jerusalem, April 27, 2023 (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The demonstrations against the Netanyahu government have managed to take root in a rather transversal way in Israeli society, even in sectors that are usually little involved in political life, such as army reservists. The reform seeks to strip the Supreme Court of scrutiny powers and entrust them to the government, and many people consider it a danger to Israeli democracy because it effectively eliminates any counterweight to the power of the incumbent government.
However, Israel has always had a very multifaceted, if not exactly fragmented, society in which very different drives and aspirations coexist. Over the years, the number of Israelis who say they do not appreciate Netanyahu’s work has progressively increased. But his party, Likud, has retained a hard core of loyal voters. In the last six elections it has always succeeded to obtain at least 30 seats in the Israeli parliament, remaining the relative majority party by detachment.
In recent months, the right-wing majority has often tried to minimize the extent of the protests against the justice reform, arguing that in the country there is a silent majority of people convinced that the power of the Supreme Court and more generally of secular and non-elected institutions must be limited. On Thursday, some interventions in the final rally of the event took up this thesis. “To all my friends here, see how much power we have,” he said for example the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich: «they will have the newspapers and the millionaires who finance the demonstrations on their side, but we have the nation».
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth he noticed that the demonstrators shouted in chorus “we don’t want a compromise”. In all probability they were referring to the attempt that Israeli President Isaac Herzog has been carrying out, which for weeks he is trying to find a compromise between the majority and the opposition to approve a more articulated justice reform (and less focused on the Supreme Court).
The people who attended the demonstration had a different profile than those who take to the streets every Saturday to protest against the government.
Il Guardian tells that on Thursday there were many people praying and chanting, many men taking up arms, but also many more children than at the anti-government demonstrations. Orthodox Jews, who represent a large part of the right-wing electorate, tend to have more children than other Israelis. The Times of Israel he noticed moreover that various groups of demonstrators arrived in Jerusalem aboard special buses from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the settlements often inhabited by Orthodox Jews that the vast majority of the international community considers illegal because they were built in a territory that would belong to the Palestinians. Most of the anti-government protesters, however, come from the cities.
The demonstration was largely peaceful, with the exception of a couple of unpleasant episodes: towards the end of the demonstration, someone he pulled a glass bottle to two journalists of Channel 13 – non-conservative newspapers and TV stations are often accused by the right-wing majority of fomenting protests against the government – while before the rallies the caricatures of some Supreme Court justices had been pasted to the ground on a road alongside the procession, so that protesters could trample on them.
Can only imagine how wild they would be here if they placed pictures of Netanyahu on the road in Balfour and let the crowd pass him.
Appreciate everyone who leaves the house to demonstrate for what is important to them, but this? unnecessary and shameful. pic.twitter.com/IDig91zPkL
— Josh Breiner (@JoshBreiner) April 27, 2023
Netanyahu did not participate in Thursday’s demonstration but thanked the people who took to the streets with a tweet, telling them that “your passion and your patriotism move me deeply”.
I thank the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who came to Jerusalem tonight to support our government. Your passion and patriotism moves me deeply. pic.twitter.com/F0aC0ETAFd
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) April 27, 2023
It is not yet clear, however, what his plans are on the disputed justice reform. At the end of March, after weeks of protests, his government had decided to postpone the parliamentary discussion after the spring break of the parliament, which will meet again on Sunday 30 April. So far, however, the government has not clarified whether it intends to schedule a debate and a vote in the next few days, or whether it will wait to see if Herzog’s efforts to find a compromise with the opposition will achieve any concrete results.