The main demonstration on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv opening the 20th week of protests against the government’s judicial reform legislation drew 135,000 people, according to protest organizers.
Demonstrations were also held across the country on Saturday evening, including in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beersheba as well as some 150 additional locations across the country.
The lineup of speakers addressing the protesters on Kaplan Street included prominent hi-tech entrepreneur and former budget department head at the Finance Ministry Shaul Meridor, acclaimed author Sefi Rachlevsky and Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Meital Lehavi.
The evening opened with demonstrations in Rehovot and Herzliya, some two hours before the end of Shabbat.“Jerusalem Day is a celebration for the unification of our eternal capital. That’s why we decided in the Sharon [area] to commemorate the day with a flag parade, celebrating the Israeli union between the Jewish and the democratic. And in this unity lies our strength,” explained Dana Oren Yannai, one of the organizers of the Herzliya protest, attended by hundreds.
Protests in Haifa began in Merkaz HaCarmel, with thousands marching down HaNasi Boulevard toward Horev junction.
Around a thousand protesters gathered at Karkur junction and blocked the road there. One of the protesters was hit by a car in the commotion that developed on the road, Walla reported.
A protest in Beersheba drew hundreds while in the Arava, dozens demonstrated at the Ein Yahav junction on Highway 90.
Earlier on Saturday, protest organizers released several statements regarding the main focus of this week’s demonstrations.
“The government’s plan to plunder the public treasury in favor of political corruption, rather than investing in the welfare of citizens, is a decisive step towards transforming Israel into a dictatorial regime,” they wrote. “This act is parallel to Hungary and Poland where public funds are constantly misappropriated to the regime.
“Netanyahu continues to waste time through deceptive negotiations while he gives NIS 14 billion of taxpayers’ money to his political allies,” they continued. “These corrupt actions serve as a means to facilitate the implementation of dictatorial laws.
“Netanyahu continues to waste time through deceptive negotiations while he gives NIS 14 billion of taxpayers’ money to his political allies. These corrupt actions serve as a means to facilitate the implementation of dictatorial laws.”
Protest organizers
“The negotiations allow Netanyahu to continue weakening the foundations of democracy. We call upon opposition leader Lapid and MK Gantz to withdraw from these deceptive negotiations immediately.”
Calls for the Judicial Selection Committee to be chosen
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Saturday night that representatives for the Judicial Selection Committee should be chosen in June and the coalition should remove all judicial reform bills from the Knesset table. The Knesset should “immediately convene the committee and start working according to the rules that have been used all these years,” Lapid said.
The Yesh Atid leader said that the selections for the panel should include the seat traditionally reserved for the opposition. On May 15, coalition members warned that the opposition would not be guaranteed a seat on the committee, as enshrined in the judicial selection committee bill, if no agreement was reached.
In March, the Knesset voted to change bylaws and delay appointing representatives to the panel. The original deadline had been March 15, but the government extended it to June 15.
Lapid said that without the appointment of the representatives, there was no point to talks, and the opposition wouldn’t be part of a “fraud.”
Lapid also renewed calls for the government to backtrack the legislative process which had been halted right as the judicial selection committee bill had been sent to the Knesset.
“The government needs to remove all laws from the Knesset table and they need to understand there will be no situation in which the coalition chooses judges for itself,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. “It’s not going to happen. Not on our watch.”
Lapid said that the protests, which unfolded immediately after the reform principles were announced in the first week of January, had succeeded in stopping the coalition from passing legislation.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for national unity in a Jerusalem Day Speech.
He noted that the Israeli flag was seeing a renaissance, and selling fast, not just for Jerusalem Day but also for anti-reform protests – adding that claims Israel was descending into a dictatorship were baseless.
“We are brothers,” said Netanyahu. “Without giving up on our important principles, we will always look for discussion and agreement, and my hope is that we’ll arrive at the day that all the flags will become one flowing river, all of us together.”