The situation in Israel has been developing fast over last night and
throughout this morning as of LA time, at the very least,
with Benjamin Netanyahu being set to give a speech where he was going to say that he
was not going to be making this major judicial reform overhaul.
And then that was canceled.
There was a lot of speculation as to why.
And then there was talk about like, maybe he's moving in the direction of stopping
it, maybe he's not, there's pressure coming at him from multiple directions.
And of course,
you have these major protests developing which we're gonna talk about.
As of right now it appears that the signals they are putting out as a result
of this backroom deal is that they will be temporarily at least stopping this
incredibly controversial plan to reform the supreme court as well as
the interplay between the legislature and the supreme court in Israel.
So some of what we have prepped here is no longer accurate.
That is what we believe is the case.
Now, I have a feeling that many of the protesters are gonna see this
as a stalling tactic to see if the protests fall apart.
That would be my fear or to give you more details about it, first of all,
I do wanna let you know initially how this came about.
So it was set off by the government's attempt to give itself greater control
over the selection of supreme court justices and
to limit the court's authority over parliament.
Critics fear the changes will remove important checks and
balances on the government and erode democracy.
A lot of the protests are echoing those messages.
Supporters say the overhaul would curb the influence of an overreaching and
unelected judicial bureaucracy.
And on top of the concern about what could happen with the Supreme Court,
over the weekend a defense minister was fired by Benjamin Netanyahu as well,
again related to this.
So Francesa I'm really curious what you have to say about this.
>> Yeah, I mean I think that it's incredible when any population rises up
and can demand, take to the streets and everyday people can join together and
say that we don't believe in this power grab.
We believe in a separation of the judiciary and
of the executive branches and parliament and these are important checks to have.
And I think when Israel interestingly and
ironically touts itself as the only democracy in the Middle East,
that is what I think a lot of the Israelis are defending right now.
Is the protection of that democracy.
You cannot however say what I just said and not think of and
remember the state of occupation that Palestinians living in the West Bank
in Gaza and within Israel itself, within the 1948 borders,
what they live through and what they go through every single day.
Which is not democratic, which is not equal protection under the law,
which is not equal rights, right?
It is a steadily losing territory position where they have their human rights,
their civil rights, their land grabbed from them every single day and
they are subjected to all kinds of incredible humiliation from not being
able to use the same, obviously, hospitals, roads, getting a job, right?
So there are so many contradictions in this and yet
I am absolutely supportive of the Israeli people standing up to a power grab
from an incredibly far right government.
I just wish and hope and have faith that one day they can turn that critique
also on the ways that the continuation of the occupation undermines the very
democracy that they're trying to defend now.
>> Hopefully.
Yeah, hopefully.
And look, it's obviously beyond my anything even approaching expertise.
But I would assume that to the extent that that sentiment is there it's probably more
seen in the people who are protesting literally right now.
I have a feeling if it's gonna come from anywhere,
it's probably gonna come from there.
And by the way, this is outdated information at this point,
but at one point at least more than 100,000 Israelis were protesting.
There's been some time, we'll have to see what the beginnings of
an announcement I guess from Benjamin Netanyahu, maybe he will give a speech.
What effect it'll have on it.
Could it possibly diffuse the protests?
I doubt it.
I think perhaps if it's seen as obviously stalling tactic,
perhaps that will be a thing that will actually lead to
more people getting to the streets, but it has been very significant.
You had everything from malls, the airport, kindergartens, embassies as
well now being shut down as a result of this, not only from the protests and
from embassy staff sort of willingly being a part of this,
the stock exchange it's gonna be closed until at least Tuesday.
Israeli time is a big time difference obviously.
You have the head of Israeli workers union announcing a general strike across
the country until the legislation is suspended.
So we'll have to see how they respond to these developments.
There hasn't been a strike like that in Israel for literally decades.
One of the leaders of one of the trade union umbrella groups said,
where are we leading our beloved Israel to the abyss?
Today we are stopping everyone's dissent towards the abyss by participating
in this work stoppage.
There was one protester, I love his quote, who said this is the last chance to stop
this move into a dictatorship, I'm here for the fight to the end.
And apparently while that's the initial protest that's been going on for
just a little bit in response to what's going on.
There are apparently right wing Whatsapp groups and social media with activists
coming together to counter protest, including calls to take up arms like
tractors, guns, knives and attack the anti-government protesters.
I haven't yet seen reports of that actually happening.
There had been talk about these counter protests sort of beginning to spool up.
We're gonna have to see if that happens throughout the course of today, Francesca.
>> Yeah, just final thoughts.
I think that this is definitely a very far right government and the protesters that
are thinking of aggressing upon the people taking to the streets right now are often
on the to the even farther right of the government that's currently in power.
They want more settlements, they want more ability to basically
come down on Palestinian people wherever they might be.
They're more extremist, right?
We saw them chanting and jeering and
shouting when the Al Aqsa mosque was bombed about a year ago, right?
When there was flames emerging from that place, right?
And they were shouting and cheering on the Israeli military and
their incredible crimes at that moment.
So I think it's important to remember, and this is also just a warning for
all of us in the United States when I think a lot of Republicans
here venerate Israel for a lot of different reasons.
Primarily because of, I think a lot of that the segregation,
the ethnic cleansing, that let's keep the brown people over here over there, etc.
Obviously the Christian nationalist cycle, Jesus is coming back and then most of
the Jews are gonna die and then other ones are gonna convert, but don't tell anybody.
But then there is also that power grab,
right, there is also that we like how far right this government is and
look at them making moves to even actually consolidate their power even more so.
It's hard to imagine that our country is better when it comes to
separations of power between the judicial and executive branch.
But imagine here if we had even more of an attempt to say, hey,
let's reduce the number of Supreme court justices to four, right?
And let's skip confirmation, right?
It's just gonna be the appointment of the President hook line and singer and
it quite a few of them recently.
>> Now, if it's an election year, they're gonna start skipping them.
So we have our own problems too.
But, yeah, no, it's a good point.
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