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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from hospital on July 24 after emergency heart surgery, hours after tens of thousands of supporters and opponents took to the streets ahead of today’s key vote on judicial reform.
The sudden hospitalization of Netanyahu for the implantation of a pacemaker has marked a new turning point in an already dramatic series of events, capable of splitting the country and influencing the future of Israel. The move to the Knesset should lead to the green light for the first legislative act, contested because it would constitute an autocratic involution.
Tensions reached a new peak on Sunday as protesters waving Israeli flags paralyzed Jerusalem streets and police used water cannons to disperse them. Netanyahu’s office and hospital said Netanyahu had been released. Netanyahu’s doctors said on Sunday the operation went off without problems.
The clash on the reform of the judicial system
The reform pushed by Netanyahu envisages radical changes aimed at limiting the powers of the judiciary: from limiting the ability of the Supreme Court to challenge parliamentary decisions to reviewing the criteria for selecting judges.
Netanyahu and his allies, a right-wing coalition populated by ultranationalists and ultra-Orthodox, argue that the changes are needed to limit the powers of unelected judges. Their opponents, drawn largely from Israel’s professional middle class, argue that the reform will dismantle the country’s fragile system of checks and balances and tilt Israel towards authoritarian drift.