30th week of protests after 1st overhaul law passes, amid uncertainty, relocation talk
Rallies Saturday night in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, beyond; local firm reports ‘extreme demand’ from Israelis for advice on leaving; poll finds most start-ups working to pull out money
The protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul was gearing up for mass weekly demonstrations on Saturday evening, on the first weekend after the hardline Netanyahu government passed a controversial law to limit judicial review of governmental and ministerial decisions, the first in a series of proposed laws that will radically constrain the judiciary.
The passage of the reasonableness law on Monday sparked furious protests that evening and into early Tuesday, which were met with an unprecedented show of force by cops, sparking accusations of police brutality and excessive use of force.
A mass protest against the judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv on Thursday saw police turn out in force and ended around midnight with no major incidents.
On Saturday, protesters were planning a march from Savidor train station to Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv for a mass demonstration beginning at 8 p.m.
Demonstrators were also to gather outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Azza Street in Jerusalem on Saturday night starting at 7:15 p.m. Like the previous 29 weeks of sustained protests, rallies and other gatherings were planned in around 150 other locations across the country as well.
The protests have raged since January, when Netanyahu’s then-fresh coalition announced its plans to overhaul the judiciary.
The overhaul has also faced massive international criticism — the latest cover of Der Spiegel features an image of a protest being hit by the jet from a water cannon, with the headline “Is Israeli democracy dying? A country struggles for its future.”
The front page of Der Spiegel:
Is Israeli democracy dying?
A country fighting for its future. pic.twitter.com/Cye7hjOrrY— Josh Drill (@drill_josh) July 29, 2023
Monday’s vote saw lawmakers approve a measure that prevents judges from striking down government and ministerial decisions on the basis they are “unreasonable.” The law was approved by all 64 coalition members — with the entire 56-strong opposition boycotting the vote — despite the sustained mass protests, vehement opposition from top judicial, security, economic and public figures, repeated warnings from allies, chief among them the US, and thousands of Israeli military reservists vowing to quit service.
The government’s critics say removing the standard of reasonability opens the door to corruption and improper appointments of unqualified cronies to important positions.
Many members of the hard-right, religious coalition have called on the government to push ahead with the rest of its judicial overhaul plans, which include giving the ruling majority near-complete power to appoint Israel’s judges, and radically limiting the court’s oversight of legislation.
Netanyahu said this week he would seek to reach a broad consensus on the other elements of the proposal, but gave the opposition a November deadline to reach compromise agreements. He was also ambivalent, in US media interviews, on whether he would honor a High Court decision to strike down the reasonability law; the justices are to hear petitions against it in September.
The protest movement against the government has vowed to keep the demonstrations going.
However, a group of lawyers representing a number of those detained during the protests warned this week that police were violating the rights of the detainees to have proper legal representation, Haaretz reported Friday. According to the report, a group of lawyers sent a letter to police chief Kobi Shabtai and police legal adviser Elazar Kahana, asking that they look into the accusations which included officers allegedly not providing access to the detainees for hours at a time.
The passage of the first law Monday sparked massive backlash, with a number of global credit agencies issuing special reports warning of the negative consequences of the overhaul and the significant risks to Israel’s economy.
Netanyahu and other top officials have dismissed the threats, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of the far-right Religious Zionism party, openly blaming the anti-overhaul protests.
In the wake of the government passing of the reasonableness law, a survey on Tuesday by Israel’s Channel 13 found that over a quarter of Israelis are considering leaving the country.
The poll found that 28% of respondents were weighing a move abroad, 64% were not, and 8% were unsure. Over half of the survey’s respondents — 54% — also said they feared the judicial overhaul was harming Israel’s security, and 56% were worried about civil war. Israel’s opinion polls can often be unreliable, but they influence politicians and voters.
Separately, a WhatsApp group for doctors seeking advice for relocating overseas was opened after the vote, drawing over 3,000 physicians and leading a top Health Ministry official to implore them to say.
Amid uncertainty, talk of relocation
A new report this week also found that almost 70% of Israeli startups are taking active steps to pull money and shift parts of their businesses outside the country due to the uncertainty created by the judicial overhaul.
The New York Times reported Friday on a company that specializes in helping people relocate to and from Israel seeing a sharp uptick in activity, with 90% of queries about leaving Israel.
Shay Obazanek, a manager for relocation company Ocean Group, said there was now “extreme demand — it is extraordinary.”
“It used to be people would go for a personal experience — ‘I got a job offer,’ ‘It can advance me financially,’ ‘We’ll go as a family for two to three years and come back.’ Now they talk about leaving, and going only in one direction,” he told The Times.
“The motivation is so high that people are willing to compromise and leave even if they don’t have a job offer,” said Obazanek. “They’re willing to accept a drop in their standard of living because they’re so worried that their freedom of movement will be curtailed. In a word, they’re scared of a dictatorship, and they worry that if they wait, it may be too late.”
Financial advisers are also fielding a flood of questions about how to open back accounts abroad and move assets, according to the report.
One financial consultant told the Times that, in recent months, he has helped private individuals transfer significant sums of money from Israel to Europe and the United States, and sold his Tel Aviv area apartment to convert half of the proceeds into dollars.
“I have quite a lot of friends who recently bought houses and apartments in Cyprus and Greece,” he told the Times. “Everyone is playing with the idea — ‘Where could we go?’”
