More than 200,000 protesters take to the streets of Israel for another week against judicial reform

Pedro Sánchez expresses the support of the Socialist International to the mobilizations

29 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

More than 200,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv this Saturday to protest against the judicial reform promoted by the Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in response to the mobilization last Thursday in which supporters of the norm took the streets of the country.

In the main act, in Tel Aviv, the ex-judge of the Supreme Court Yoram Danziger and the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Aaron Ciechanover have intervened. In addition, a message from the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, in his capacity as President of the Socialist International, has been projected.

“Dear Israeli friends, we in the Socialist International have always fought for freedom, equality, justice and democracy. But as many of you know, these are values ​​that we cannot take for granted and that we have to promote and defend daily”, underlined Sánchez.

“As such, now, as always, socialist internationalists stand in solidarity with the people of Israel. Dear friends, you will always find ways to fight for democracy,” he added.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, has intervened in the city of Kfar Saba and has criticized the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, the main defender of judicial reform. “The person who has declared war on the Supreme Court cannot and will not be the person who names the next Chief Justice,” he has argued.

This Sunday the ordinary sessions of the Knesset or Israeli Parliament are scheduled to resume, for which reason the opposition fears that the parties that support Netanyahu will reopen the legislative process of the reform, suspended for weeks due to the protests.

In addition to the massive demonstration in Tel Aviv, there have also been important mobilizations in Haifa (30,000), Kfar Saba (18,000) or Netanya (16,000), according to estimates by Crowd Solutions for Channel 13 television. This Saturday there are calls in more of 150 points from Israel in the 17th week of mobilizations.

The conveners have announced the call for next Thursday of an Equality Day. “We will fight for equality in service to the State and in economic contribution”, in reference to the intention of the Netanyahu government to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from the two-year mandatory military service.

“The days in which one party provides service to the State and also finances the yeshivas (Talmudic schools) while the Government tries to impose a halakic (religious) dictatorship are over,” the convening platform has warned.