Israel Approves Part of Netanyahu’s Controversial Judicial Overhaul

JERUSALEM—Israel’s Parliament passed a divisive judicial overhaul, defying months of protests and plunging the country further into a political crisis that has exposed rifts over its identity and raised fears about its national security.

The law’s passage on Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition—without any opposition support—marks a pivotal juncture for Israeli society, setting up a potential showdown with the country’s Supreme Court, the institution whose power the law was designed to curb. It presents a decisive moment for thousands of military reservists who have said they would quit and the business, union leaders and medical professionals who have threatened mass work stoppages.

And it could complicate Israel’s relationship with the U.S. and other allies, who have long considered it the only full-fledged democracy in the Middle East. President Biden took the unusual step of calling on Netanyahu to compromise before passing the legislation. The White House released a statement calling the bill’s passage “unfortunate.”

Voting in favor of the bill were Netanyahu’s entire coalition of 64 lawmakers, widely viewed as the most right wing, nationalist and religious in the country’s 75-year history. They cheered the law, which takes away the Supreme Court’s ability to nullify government decisions it finds “unreasonable in the extreme”—a concept they said was nebulous and allowed liberal judges to overturn the will of an increasingly right-wing electorate.

It is the first in a series of laws the coalition wants to pass to limit the power of the court system. Next up is a bill that would give lawmakers more power to select judges—a move that is more contentious than the bill passed on Monday. It could be voted on in the fall.

“We made the first move in the historic process of fixing the justice system,” said Justice Minister Yariv Levin, widely considered the architect of the overhaul.

In a speech Monday night, Netanyahu said that his coalition would continue to reach out to the opposition in order to reach agreements on any judicial legislation going forward.

“No side will control the court. This cannot happen. It will not happen on our watch,” Netanyahu said.

The legislation passed after talks to forge a compromise collapsed. Opposition lawmakers walked out of the room, boycotting the vote.

Mass demonstrations broke out across the country Monday, and more were planned late into the night. Police worked to prevent protesters from storming the Knesset. Tens of thousands shouted “Democracy!” and blew loud horns as they filled the streets of Jerusalem near the Knesset and other government buildings.

“We refuse to accept this,” said Roee Basha, 34. “It is clear to us all that there is no alternative. We either escalate or we leave the country.”

Police said dozens of protesters were arrested, with authorities forcibly removing some demonstrators blocking streets in Tel Aviv, according to footage aired on Israel’s Channel 12. Police used water cannons to disperse protesters in Tel Aviv, the footage showed.

“We will not give up,” he said. “We will not surrender. We will not let them turn Israel into a broken, undemocratic country, which is run by hatred and extremism.”

Monday’s legislative action could set off an extraordinary series of events that will test Israel’s unity, including a challenge to the law in front of the Supreme Court. A nongovernmental organization said it petitioned the court Monday, claiming that the law fundamentally changes the nature of Israeli democracy and that the process to pass the law was flawed.

“We are moving one step closer to a constitutional showdown,” said Yuval Shany, a law professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Monday’s legislation was an amendment to one of Israel’s so-called basic laws—piecemeal legislation that is the closest thing the country has to a constitution. Shany said justices have never struck down a basic law but have suggested in various rulings that the court has the right to do so if it fundamentally changes the nature of democracy in Israel or if it abuses the constitutional process.

The bill’s passage represents a challenge for Israel’s military, often called a “people’s army” for its reliance on volunteer reserves. The judicial overhaul has alienated many military reservists, some of whom see the move as a power grab by ultra-Orthodox Jews, the vast majority of whom don’t serve in the army.

Thousands of military reservists said this week they would stop reporting for volunteer duty if the legislation passed, although it remains to be seen if they will carry through on that promise. Military officials have warned that the legislation was undermining unity within the military.

“I have no words. I want to cry,” Ben Levy, a reserve combat soldier and psychology student from Netanya, said after Monday’s vote.

He said it was likely that many more reservists will announce they won’t serve any more and many will do it quietly by finding an excuse not to show up.

Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister now in his sixth term, brought the judicial legislation back from defeat after his government first tried to pass a different package of bills in March. He postponed the effort after mass protests and a general strike paralyzed the nation, but he said last month that he would pass the overhaul in modified form.

Netanyahu, who was released from the hospital Monday after being fitted for a pacemaker, hasn’t historically been an advocate for changing the judiciary, but he was under intense pressure to pass it from his right flank, which gives him his narrow parliamentary majority.

On the other side were Biden, business leaders and hundreds of thousands of protesters who have demonstrated every weekend for more than six months. On Monday, the country’s main labor union, the Histadrut, said it was preparing for the possibility of calling a general strike, potentially crippling the country again.

The debate over the judicial legislation has cast a light on Israel’s societal divide over what it means to be both a Jewish and a democratic state. The state was founded and controlled in its early decades by secular socialists of largely Eastern European descent. They envisioned a culturally Jewish but socially liberal democratic state. Over recent decades, an alliance between various segments that have come to represent the Israeli right—religious Zionists, settlers, the ultraorthodox and Jews of Middle Eastern descent—has grown in both numbers and power. Netanyahu’s Likud party, which is itself secular, has united those segments on the right into a political powerhouse.

“This is a clash between the Israelis and the Jews,” said Gideon Rahat, chair of the political science department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Israelis, he said, represent the founders who envisioned a secular Zionist state while the Jews are those who want to rebuild the Jewish kingdom that reigned over the land 2,000 years ago.

“It’s a clash between a more civil identity and a more religious identity,” he said.

In a country without a powerful presidency, the Supreme Court has long been the only check on the government’s ruling coalition, often thwarting decisions by right-wing governments in recent years. One recent example was when the court nullified Netanyahu’s appointment of a key ultraorthodox ally who was convicted of corruption and tax evasion to be interior, health and finance minister.

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the coalition was trying to “restore the balance between the branches of government.”

“Together we will continue to make repairs responsibly,” he said.

Hodaya Ganon, 27, a social worker from the northern Israeli city of Haifa, said passing the legislation Monday counted as long-awaited recognition of right-wing voters. “Until now, all previous right-wing governments have bent to the will of the other side at the expense of their voters, despite having won fairly and democratically,” she said.

It is, in part, Netanyahu’s legal troubles that have brought the country to this point. Throughout most of his two decades in power, Netanyahu built coalitions from the right, center and the left. After his 2019 indictment on bribery and fraud—which he denies—his former centrist partners and even some on the right refused to sit in a government with him, leading him to briefly lose power. When he returned as premier late last year, he built a coalition that included two ultraorthodox political parties and an alliance of ultranationalists.

Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, a legal and Jewish studies scholar with the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, said that even though the right wing has been in power for decades, many voters feel as if the country is ruled by secular, liberal elites and that is most evident in the power wielded by the court.

“They still feel they are the ones who don’t have the power,” she said. “So that’s what they are trying to change now.”

—Ari Flanzraich contributed to this article.

Write to Dov Lieber at [email protected] and Shayndi Raice at [email protected]