‘Reasonableness’ vote ignites a chaotic Tuesday in Israel

At least 73 Israelis were arrested on Tuesday as opponents of the government’s judicial reform initiative packed Ben-Gurion Airport and blocked highways and interchanges across the country in the wake of the Knesset’s vote early Tuesday to advance key legislation limiting judicial oversight.

Police ratcheted up their use of force to keep demonstrators in check, deploying water cannons and the movement of police horses against people blocking roads. Some injuries were reported.

The “Day of Resistance” saw marches, demonstrations and convoys on highways in and around Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and the Binyamin region, as well as at Ben-Gurion Airport and in front of the US embassy in Tel Aviv, with several major roads blocked for a time during the evening hours.

On Tuesday night, Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said police handled the day’s events well. “We succeeded in safeguarding the right to protest and balancing between the freedom to protest and freedom of movement as much as possible,” he said.

Diaspora Affairs and Social Equality Minister Amichai Chikli drew the US into Tuesday’s turmoil when he accused the Biden administration of conspiring with opponents of the government to inflame the protests.

“Biden’s circle coordinates with them every time they want to inflame the protests in Israel,” Chikli said in an interview on Kol BaRama, a haredi radio station.

Tuesday’s protests followed an overnight vote in the Knesset that passed along partisan lines — 64 to 56 — a bill to restrict the use of the “reasonableness” standard by the Supreme Court.

MK Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said he would immediately prepare the bill for the two additional plenum votes necessary for it to become law. The goal of the governing coalition is to pass the bill before the end of the summer session on July 29.

The legislation would bar “reasonableness” as a legal justification for judges to reverse decisions made by the Cabinet, ministers and “other elected officials as set by law.”

Critics say the standard is legally vague and has been used by the court to encroach upon the government’s authority, and that the bill will erode Israel’s system of checks and balances and lead to an abuse of power.

Rothman told i24News on Tuesday that while his committee might hear suggestions for changes in the bill (”every hearing in the committee is open to changes,” he said), “before we talk about changes, we need to talk about what’s in the bill.”

“The bill is quite simple, it’s trying to have the same standards that apply in the United States and any other [democratic] country,” Rothman continued. “Judges … can critique and apply scrutiny when there are issues of human rights … they can apply scrutiny to the procedure and due process. But they cannot decide that the minister is not reasonable enough to make a decision — that is an essential part of the separation of power.”

“It shouldn’t be controversial, because it’s not,” he said.

“Thousands of people are blocking the roads illegally. It doesn’t matter that the law is moderate, it doesn’t matter that we invested in the process a lot, it doesn’t matter that 64 Knesset members voted it [through]. They’re not protesting the bill, they’re protesting democracy, they don’t like the outcome of the elections,” Rothman charged. 

Changing how the Israeli judiciary works “isn’t the end of democracy, but rather will strengthen democracy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

“The rights of the courts and Israeli citizens will not be harmed in any way. The court will continue to monitor the legality of government decisions and appointments. [We] will be required to act in good faith and with proportionality, fairness and equality,” he added.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the move would “enable an elected government to implement its policy according to the law. Unlike the opposition, which behaves irresponsibly and spreads incitement, we in the coalition act responsibly,” he said.

“We will continue to advance, with determination, necessary changes to the judicial system, as we promised the public before [last November’s] election and in accordance with the mandate we received from the people,” Smotrich continued.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused the government of “losing all restraint.”

“Canceling the judicial test of reasonableness [according to the bill] they have submitted to the Knesset confirms one thing: The law does not apply to them,” said Lapid.

“They can fire all the gatekeepers, from the attorney general on down, and switch them out for obedient puppets who will not interfere when they corrupt the country,” he added.

Cabinet ministers on Sunday assailed Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara for suggesting that protesters be given free-rein to paralyze the country.

“There can be no effective protest without disturbing the public order,” Baharav-Miara said at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying, “That’s a shocking sentence. Are you saying that besieging a barbershop from inches away is legitimate?” he asked, in a reference to his wife’s experience on March 1, when she had to be rescued by hundreds of police after being trapped in a hair salon for hours by anti-judicial reform protesters in Tel Aviv.

According to numbers provided by the Attorney General’s Office, only six indictments were handed down out of 572 arrests made at protests before this week. Those six were for assaulting police officers.

After 300 IDF reservists involved in cyber and technology signed a letter reaffirming that they would refuse to report for reserve duty when called, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant late Tuesday accused them of “giving a prize to our enemies.” Only an “unqualified showing up to accomplish any assigned mission” would guarantee Israel’s security, he said.

IDF Air Force Chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar met late Monday with dozens of senior IDF air force reservists to try to quell or mitigate their call to avoid showing up for duty as a group, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Bar urged them not to publicly call for refusing duty but said they could protest the government out of uniform. If anyone felt a need to refuse duty, they should do so quietly, individually and directly with his commander, he said.

The coalition’s decision to push ahead with judicial reform legislation came after compromise talks hosted by President Isaac Herzog stalled last month. Legislation had been frozen since March in deference to the talks.

In June, Yesh Atid leader Lapid and National Unity Party head Benny Gantz announced they were suspending the reform negotiations.

On Sunday, both Lapid and Gantz called for the resumption of talks, a sentiment echoed by Economy Minister Nir Barkat of Likud, who nonetheless noted that “it was the opposition that left the room” in the first place.

Herzog continued to insist an agreement was “attainable.” He said the decision of the sides to reject talks was “a blunder of historic proportions.”