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TEL AVIV — Israel entered a new phase of its constitutional crisis on Tuesday as the nation waited to see how, or if, the Supreme Court would respond to a new law intended to curb its power, which has spurred unprecedented protests across the country.
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The escalating showdown between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused the judiciary of overreach, and the Supreme Court, which serves as the sole check on the government’s power, comes after pro-government lawmakers pushed through the first bill in a sweeping legislative package to curb the court’s power.
Since its passage Monday, at least seven petitions were put before the Supreme Court to cancel the measure, which prohibits the court from striking down government actions it deems “unreasonable.” Claimants argue the new law would collapse Israel’s system of checks and balances and allow the government to pass legislation violating Israel’s Basic Laws — the collection of laws that act as Israel’s constitution.
Israeli government votes to limit Supreme Court powers amid mass protests
A 72-page petition by Israel’s Bar Association, which represents more than 77,000 attorneys, called for an immediate hearing on the newly passed law, which it said would transform Israeli politicians from public servants into “publicly elected officials exempted from the burden of the law.”
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“The law to eliminate the reasonableness clause was not enacted in a vacuum,” the petition added. “It is part of a declared plan, only a part of which has so far been revealed to the public.”
On Tuesday, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut said she and a delegation of justices would rush back from an event in Germany to hold an emergency hearing, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan. They will return to a nation divided, with some celebrating what they call an overdue correction to the court’s liberal bias, and others mourning what they see as an irreparable blow to Israeli society.
“A black day for Israeli democracy,” read a message in small white type on the almost all-black front pages of Israel’s four largest daily newspapers.
Immediately after Monday’s vote, the Tel Aviv Stock Market dropped and the shekel plummeted against the dollar. On Tuesday, Morgan Stanley downgraded Israel’s sovereign credit status, saying in a memo that it sees “increased uncertainty about the economic outlook in the coming months.”
In a televised address Monday night, Netanyahu said that the legislation was “necessary” and would allow an elected government to rule according to its constituency. He said that he hoped the rest of the overhaul package, which could include laws to give politicians direct power to appoint judges, would be reached with a broad consensus.
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The prime minister made similar overtures in March, when mass protests and a general strike forced him to delay the overhaul, but negotiations with the opposition ultimately collapsed.
Overnight, tens of thousands of Israelis flooded the streets, joining the thousands who had been camped outside the Knesset and the Supreme Court since Monday morning. They hoisted Israeli flags and vowed to continue their fight against the government.
On Tuesday, medical personnel launched a general strike for at least 24 hours in all cities except Jerusalem, putting a halt to nonessential care at hospitals and clinics.
“We are in difficult days, days of disputes and gratuitous hatred,” tweeted far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a radical settler activist who has been convicted of incitement to racism against Arabs and support for a Jewish-supremacist terrorist group.
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He took euphoric selfies in the Knesset after the law’s passage and has consistently expressed his disdain for protesters. He accused them Tuesday of receiving “hundreds of millions from foreign entities.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers wasted no time pursuing their agenda, which aims to embed far-right ideology and religious conservatism in Israel’s public spaces and government decision-making.
Israel’s ruling coalition, the most far-right in its history, is composed of religious conservatives, settler activists and ultranationalists who are pushing policies that, according to years of opinion polls, are not supported by the majority of the Israeli public.
They include the annexation of the West Bank, the land that Palestinians view as part of their future state, and the granting of special privileges to the country’s ultra-Orthodox minority, an issue that has long driven social divisions in Israel.
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On Tuesday, the United Torah Judaism party began advancing a deeply contentious bill to enshrine into law the exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from mandatory military service. The bill would define young men who spend their days studying the Torah as contributing “a significant service to the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”
For years, the Supreme Court has struck down attempts to formalize military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, who have long enjoyed an outsize influence in government and been granted subsidies not afforded to the rest of Israeli society.
“The government of destruction continues to destroy our common life,” opposition leader Yair Lapid tweeted on Tuesday. “If they don’t enlist, who will? If they don’t risk their lives, who will?”
If the law advances, it will pose another unprecedented challenge for the Supreme Court, which can no longer overrule Knesset decisions on the basis of “unreasonableness” — the standard it has used to strike down decisions it sees as contrary to the country’s founding principles.
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As the country stumbles into uncharted legal territory, it is also facing a growing military crisis, with more than 13,000 military reservists threatening to boycott their service in protest.
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Lapid condemned Monday’s vote as a “loss” for the country but called on reservists to wait for the Supreme Court’s response to the law before refusing to report for training.
The prospect of a sudden shortfall in Israel’s voluntary army has already damaged the military, army chief Herzi Halevi said Monday in a rare statement. His requests to meet with Netanyahu before the vote were repeatedly denied.
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Columnist Nahum Barnea warned reservists that not showing up for duty risked transforming the military into a tool of the right-wing government.
“If you quit now, you will only make it easier for the government to turn the [Israel Defense Forces’] elite units into militias that are subservient to rabbis; you will only make it easier for the government to order illegal actions in the West Bank ... and you will doom the future of women’s military service,” he wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronot.
The military’s reckoning comes at a particularly fraught time for Israel, which is struggling to contain a new generation of Palestinian militants in the West Bank. On Monday night, three Palestinians were shot dead after one of them fired at Israeli soldiers from a vehicle near the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha, the IDF said.
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Defense experts have also warned of growing tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon, crowed about Israel’s troubles on Monday.
“Today was the worst day in [Israeli] history,” he said in a televised statement. “This is what has put it on the path to collapse, fragmentation and disappearance, God willing.”
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