‘Million March’ Held Outside the Knesset as Israelis Speak Out in Favor of Judicial Reforms-

Over 1000 buses bring people to large pro-government demonstration in Jerusalem

Edited by: Fern Sidman

An enormous rally with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators called the ‘Million March,’ was held in front of the Knesset on Thursday in support of the government’s planned judicial reforms, as was reported by Israel National News.

Over 1,000 buses brought citizens from all over the country to participate in the demonstration. Police have said that crowds at the demonstration reached over 200,000 people.

INN reported that Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Constitution Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman, the architects of the judicial reform legislation, addressed the demonstrators, as did numerous other politicians.

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Demonstration organizer Barla Crombie stated that “the purpose of the demonstrations is to remind and demand from our elected officials in the government and the coalition that the people want judicial reform, that the people are behind them, that the people give them strength,” according to the INN report.

MK Avichay Buaron, another initiator of the rally, said: “An entire camp cannot live with the knowledge that they are worth less. If there is no reform – that means that our votes at the voting booth are not worth anything. We are the majority at the voting booths, but we can’t really run the country. This reality must change. The nationalist camp is also allowed to have a share in managing the country’s issues. We are sick of being second-class citizens.”

“We are sick of every decision that the government makes and which is for the benefit of soldiers or settlers or residents of south Tel Aviv – the Supreme Court is the one which decides whether it is a reasonable decision or not, and on the way invalidates it or the law which benefits these populations. We will not stop the protests, and we will only raise them until the million-person protest in which we tell the President, to the court, and to the opposition: No more! After 75 years from the State of Israel’s establishment, the people of Israel will be set free and Israel will embark on a new path. It’s time,” he said, INN reported.

JNS.org reported that Matan Peleg, CEO of Zionist NGO Im Tirtzu, which organized hundreds of buses to Thursday’s rally, said in a statement:

“The demonstration is a full-throated endorsement of democracy. After five rounds of elections, the National Camp finally and definitively won an election that represents a clear mandate. Unfortunately, instead of being allowed 100 days for the new government to prove itself, they were given 100 days of unrelenting opposition, some of which was anarchy.

“The reality is that the real victim of these endless attacks has been democracy itself, as well as Zionism. That is why we are calling on everyone to come to the Knesset today! Defend Democracy! Defend Zionism! Defend the sovereign State of Israel!”

That message is reflected in protest placards that read: “They won’t steal the election! March of the Million. Reform Now!”

The AP reported that after 16 weeks of protests against the overhaul that brought parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to a standstill, Thursday marked a rare mobilization of massive public support for the divisive plan.

Crowds of Israelis transformed a major Jerusalem thoroughfare into a sea of blue and white national flags. The AP reported that some protesters stomped on a carpet displaying the faces of Israel’s Supreme Court president and former attorney general.

“We will not give up,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the rally, the AP reported. “We have the people, they have the media,” he said, referring to the government’s critics that he accuses of exerting undue influence over the news media.

The masses snaking down Kaplan Street railed against their opponents and chanted slogans in support of the judicial plan, which Netanyahu delayed last month after mass anti-government protests — mainly by secular and liberal Israelis — intensified and even threatened to paralyze the economy, according to the AP report.

Some Israelis who are clearly disappointed in the government’s failure to push through the legislation before the Knesset’s recess earlier this month,  escalated their demands for Netanyahu’s coalition to fulfill its promises, according to the AP report.

“The people want judicial reform,” the protesters yelled. At the end of his speech, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has spearheaded the overhaul push, joined the chant, as was reported by the AP. A banner onstage read: “The elections will not be stolen from us.”

Supporters of the overhaul argue it is needed to rein in a system of judges who are unelected and overly interventionist in political issues, the AP reported. Netanyahu’s coalition, which took office late last year, captured a majority of 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Opponents contend the overhaul is a power grab that would weaken a system of checks and balances and concentrate authority in the hands of the prime minister and his extremist allies, as was reported by the AP. They also say that Netanyahu has a conflict of interest in trying to reshape the nation’s legal system at a time when he is on trial.

JNS.org also reported that reformists argue that the opposition is only a minority, albeit an aggressive and vocal one. They insist that most Israelis support the reforms. They point to the November 1st election, where the right won a 64-seat majority in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset, and where judicial reform was a top issue for all the coalition parties, contrary to what the opposition claims.

“I am deeply moved by the tremendous support,” Netanyahu wrote on Twitter about Thursday’s demonstration, according to the AP report.

JNS reported that Netanyahu was working behind the scenes in support of the Million March as he met with stakeholders to ensure that they have the resources to bring people out onto the streets. He had also urged haredi coalition members to take part in this historic demonstration of support for the furtherance of democratic principles in Israel.

The prime minister viewed the massive rally as an “expression of public legitimacy” for the governing coalition and, by extension, for its reform program, JNS reported.

Also on Thursday, JNS.org reported that according to organizers of the Million March, 6 million shekels ($1.65 million) had been raised for the protest, 1 million shekels of that through crowdfunding and the rest through large donors and coalition parties. The Religious Zionism Party contributed 1.2 million shekels and the Likud Party 600,000 shekels.

Twenty-nine Zionist NGOs had signed on as sponsors of the event. One of them is the Liba Center, an organization founded in 2013 to strengthen the Jewish character of the state, JNS.org reported. Oren Henig, its executive director, told JNS that more is at stake than judicial reform as the courts have been captured by activist judges who favor a left-wing, internationalist worldview and seek to undermine Israel’s particularist Jewish identity.

“The demonstration today is very important because the legal reform folds in itself the whole struggle of what kind of country we will have here, a ‘state of all its citizens’ led by the judges or a Jewish state led by those chosen by the majority of the people. The High Court of Justice is a catalyst and a pillar in the effort to force the State of Israel to break away from its Jewish values,” Henig told JNS.