Published: 21 July 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
The Knesset is set to pass the first bill in its controversial judicial overhaul next week. Women’s rights and media freedom are government’s next targets.
Amid tumultuous scenes, a Knesset committee on Wednesday night approved the controversial bill drastically limiting use of the reasonableness judicial standard. The decision paves the way for the coalition to pass the first part of its far-reaching judicial overhaul next week.
The second and third readings on the bill, an amendment to Basic Law: Judiciary, will begin on Sunday in the Knesset plenum, and the bill is expected to be approved and passed into law on Monday or Tuesday.
The approval came at the end of several marathon sessions by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which had to slog through 20,000 objections seemingly meant to clog the legislative process and stop the government from racing ahead with the bill, after compromise talks collapsed last month.
With hope of a last-minute reprieve and concern about the next wave of attacks on democracy, protesters stepped up resistance this week.
Tens of thousands blocked roads in a Day of Disruption. Police used water cannons and attempted physical removal of protesters at the Azrieli intersection in Tel Aviv. Healthcare workers held a two-hour “warning strike” but threatened an indefinite strike. A group of 161 elite reservists announced they would stop their volunteer reserve service if the reasonableness standard law passes.
Women’s rights emerged as a major issue this week. Bonot Alternativa (Building an Alternative), the group that dresses as handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, led a national women's strike, drawing attention to the government’s plans to hand more control to rabbinical courts.
The Chief Rabbinate's offices in Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Petah Tikva, Haifa, Rehovot and Jerusalem were the locations of choice for thousands of demonstrators.
The women are worried that the government's plans to strengthen the Chief Rabbinate's authority will damage the status of women in Israel. These plans include a bill that would expand the powers of rabbinical courts to adjudicate in civil matters, and a bill which would strip municipal rabbis of their independence.
The rabbinical courts, which do not have any female judges, are viewed as rendering decisions that are less favourable to women because of their inferior status under traditional Jewish law. They have long been the target of complaints by both secular and Orthodox feminists.
The government is also attacking the media. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has proposed the dissolution of the Cable and Satellite Council as well as the Second Authority of Television and Radio, which supervise television and radio broadcasts in Israel. They would be replaced by a new communications regulatory board that would be forbidden from interfering in broadcasters’ content and whose members would largely be chosen by the ministry.
Israeli journalists and news networks slammed the proposals on Monday, saying the proposed reforms would crush free media.
Karhi’s reforms are an effort “to eliminate the press,” the Jerusalem Journalists Association said in a statement, protesting what it described as “severe damage to public broadcasting.” It predicted that under the new rules, there would be little separation between commercial and journalistic content.
“Karhi can continue to wrap it up with promises of pluralism and diversity, but when every source produces news, there will no longer be a commitment to journalistic ethics and binding professional standards,” it warned. It added that the overhaul would “turn Israel into a fake news powerhouse.”
READ MORE
Reasonableness’ bill okayed for final Knesset votes next week, as opposition fumes (Times of Israel)
Israeli rabbinical courts are about to have a lot more control over women (Haaretz)
A plan ‘to eliminate the press’: Israeli journalists slam minister’s proposed media reform (Haaretz)
Police violently disperse protesters, deploy water cannons after hundreds block Tel Aviv highway (Haaretz)
As day of protests ends, medical official warns union could launch open-ended strike (Times of Israel)
Hundreds of Air Force officers stop reserves service in judicial reform protest (Jerusalem Post)
The reservists warned that the reform will turn Israel "from a democracy into a dictatorship."
ANALYSIS
Will Netanyahu betray his Justice Minister at the last minute? (Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz)
Netanyahu will wait until the last minute to decide: pass the bill to destroy the reasonableness standard in its current, sweeping and extreme formulation – the first step on the way to a dictatorship – or pass a different, milder, moderate and rational formulation of it.
Whatever happens to the judicial overhaul, the IDF will never be the same again (Anshell Pfeffer, Haaretz)
Photo: Bonot Alternativa at the protests (Itai Ron)
