On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities for the 28th week in a row to demonstrate against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned legislation to gut the powers of the country’s Supreme Court.
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
On the eve of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s controversial visit to the United States, which several members of Congress say they will boycott, Israeli society is coming apart at the seams. The presidency in Israel is a purely symbolic post. Power resides with the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet, which comprises open racists and fascists. His government’s expansion of Israeli squatter-settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank has drawn a rebuke from President Joe Biden, who says he’s never seen such a far-right government in Israel in all his years in office (which is a lot of years).
Last Thursday, Israelis demonstrated in front of the US Embassy in Israel, demanding that the United States pressure Netanyahu to back off his plan to gut the country’s supreme court. They said they feared the change would harm US-Israeli relations.
On Saturday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Democratic Progressive Caucus, denounced Israel as a racist state. She clarified on Sunday that she only meant that the current Netanyahu government is racist, not that the idea of Israel is. I don’t think that remark will mollify the Israel lobbies, but the episode shows how alienated some corners of the American political scene have become from the horror show in Tel Aviv.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities for the 28th week in a row to demonstrate against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned legislation to gut the powers of the country’s Supreme Court. They also announced that they would devote the coming week to disruptions, including of the rails.
Recent Posts
‘Affirming Apartheid’: Biden Admin To Allow Israel Into Visa Waiver Program
Take Action Now One critic called it “an outrageous endorsement of the Israeli government’s systematic discrimination against Palestinian…
Workers Around The World Stand With Striking U.S. Autoworkers
Take Action Now From Brazil and Mexico to South Africa and Malaysia, international labor solidarity is aiding the UAW’s fight to reverse the global…
There Are Easier Ways To Talk About War And Peace
Take Action Now We live in a very strange age in which spending money on death and destruction is understood as philanthropy… By David…
How America Hides The Human Toll Of Its Forever Wars, With Norman Solomon
Take Action Now A recent study from the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the post-9/11 wars have been responsible for some 4.5…