The Prime Minister of Israel postponed judicial reform amid protests

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu decided to postpone consideration of the judicial reform until the next session of the parliament. This happened against the background of mass protests and strikes.

“Out of a sense of national responsibility, out of a desire to prevent a split between our citizens, I decided to suspend the second and third readings of the bill,” Netanyahu said.

After this statement, the largest trade union “Histadrut” announced the cancellation of the national strike.

Protests against the reform of the courts in Israel proposed by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu continued for almost three months. The judicial reform assumes that the parliamentary majority will actually determine the choice of judges of the Supreme Court, and the court itself will lose the ability to overturn the government’s decisions. Opponents of the reform believe that its adoption will mean the loss of the independence of the courts.

On March 26, more than 600,000 demonstrators took to the streets with a population of about 9 million people. At the call of the largest trade union, which unites about 700 thousand people, a strike was announced in the country, due to which the country’s largest airport, Ben-Gurion, stopped working.

On Monday, the President of Israel Yitzhak Herzog spoke with a request to stop the reform. According to him, this is necessary “for the sake of the unity of the country.” On Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Galant put forward a similar proposal, after which he was dismissed – which unleashed a new storm of indignation among the participants of the protests.