At rally near Supreme Court, Levin slams judicial ‘tyranny,’ vows ‘complete reform’

Justice Minister Yariv Levin vowed to push forward with his controversial judicial overhaul bill during a large right-wing demonstration outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, as anti-government protesters rallied in Tel Aviv, where police detained two protesters.

“We came here to say — no more,” said Levin, speaking to some 10,000 people Thursday evening. “The control of a handful of judges over the Knesset and government is not a new thing.”

“We will carry out the will of the people,” he added. “The people demand judicial reform, there will be a complete judicial reform.”

“Do you hear us in the Supreme Court? You won’t stop us,” he said, slamming what he called the “tyranny of a handful of judges, and one attorney general, who are trying to prevent the great change.”

Levin, whose bid to hobble the judiciary has sparked mass protests since he announced it in early 2023, on Wednesday proposed to bring the ouster of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to a cabinet vote, bypassing a statutory committee that the government has struggled to convene.

The proposal came amid ultra-Orthodox parties’ threat to topple the government over its failure to codify yeshiva students’ exemption from the military draft. Baharav-Miara has demanded legislation following a High Court ruling last June that the exemptions have no legal basis.

On Friday morning, Supreme Court security guards discovered that one of the building’s windows had been shattered the night of the demonstration.

They filed a complaint with the police, who began to probe whether one of the protesters was to blame for the damage, Ynet reported.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told the protesters that he has for the past two years urged “our dear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” to “send Gali Baharav-Miara home.”

“We support the prime minister and call on him to ignore the invalid instruction of the attorney general, and to ensure that Maj. Gen. David Zini will be the next Shin Bet director,” said Ben Gvir.

Netanyahu named Zini for the job in May, defying a High Court ruling that the government’s ouster of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar was invalid.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu released a video urging his supporters to join the Jerusalem rally, saying: “In a democracy, the public decides… We’ll decide who’ll be Shin Bet head and who’ll be public service commissioner.”

The government voted in March to oust Bar, with Netanyahu citing a lack of confidence in him following the Shin Bet’s failure to prevent the onslaught of October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.

Bar announced in April that he would resign later this month, making the legality of the vote to oust him a hypothetical issue. Nonetheless, the High Court ruled in May that Netanyahu could not replace Bar because of the conflict of interest stemming from a Shin Bet probe of the premier’s top aides, who are suspected of various security-related offenses.

Shortly before the vote to oust him, Bar was removed from the negotiating team that had secured a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal in January.

Ben Gvir, who has opposed a negotiated end to the fighting in Gaza, told the right-wing crowd in Jerusalem that “we can’t end the war without victory, occupation, settlement and the encouragement of voluntary emigration” of Gazans.

Last month, Israel launched a renewed ground offensive it said aims to seize 75 percent of Gaza. Netanyahu, who has previously denied that Israel intends to resettle the Strip, said the conflict will end with the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over the devastated Strip and oust its residents.

‘No pride without democracy’

In tandem with the protest outside the Supreme Court, thousands of people attended a demonstration against the government at Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv.

Speaking at the rally, Moshe Radman, a prominent activist against the judicial overhaul, called attention to the Jerusalem “demonstration in support of Kahanism, racism and anarchy.”

Kahanism refers to the teachings of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who led a proscribed Jewish supremacist organization that included Ben Gvir as a young man.

“For two-and-a-half years now we’ve been fighting resolutely to prevent the destruction of Israel’s democracy, society and economy,” said Radman. “Even senior members of the coalition understand that this government is anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli, and that every day it’s still here is a disaster. They’re just too cowardly to do anything.”

Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Chen Ariely, who also chairs the Israel Gay Youth group, said Israeli democracy was being “assaulted in its heart of hearts.”

“The tide’s turned into a flood,” said Ariely. Alluding to the LGBTQ Pride Parade that took place in Jerusalem Thursday, he added: “There is no pride without democracy.” Tel Aviv’s own pride parade is set for next Friday.

After the Rabin Square rally, some protesters marched in the direction of the central Tel Aviv headquarters of Netanyahu’s Likud party, where police arrested dozens of anti-government protesters last week after they had stormed the building.

Police clashed with protesters after declaring the march illegal, arresting two women, according to the Protest Detainee Legal Support Front, a group of lawyers who give pro bono representation to people arrested at anti-government demonstrations.

Both women were detained on suspicion of disturbing an officer, with one of them also suspected of shooting fireworks and blocking traffic, their lawyer, Gonen Ben Yitzhak, said in a video statement.

The two were arrested at about 10 p.m. and released some six hours later on a NIS 1,000 ($286) bond, with a requirement to stay away from illegal demonstrations for two weeks, the group said.