TEL AVIV — Israel’s government on Monday was pressing ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s legal system, despite an unprecedented uproar that has included mass protests, warnings from military and business leaders and calls for restraint by the United States.
Thousands of demonstrators were expected to gather outside the parliament, or Knesset, for a second straight week to rally against the plan as lawmakers prepared to hold an initial vote.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-religious and ultranationalist lawmakers, say the plan is meant to fix a system that has given the courts and government legal advisers too much say in how legislation is crafted and decisions are made. Critics say it will upend the country’s system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the prime minister. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for a series of corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.
The standoff has plunged Israel into one of its greatest domestic crises, sharpening a divide between Israelis over the character of their state and the values they believe should guide it.
Monday’s vote on part of the legislation is just the first of three readings required for parliamentary approval. While that process is expected to take months, the vote is a sign of the coalition’s determination to barrel ahead and seen by many as an act of bad faith.
Israel’s figurehead president has urged the government to freeze the legislation and seek a compromise with the opposition. Leaders in the booming tech sector have warned that weakening the judiciary could drive away investors. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been protesting in Tel Aviv and other cities each week.
Last week, some 100,000 people demonstrated outside the Knesset as a committee granted initial approval to the plan. It was the largest protest in the city in years.
On Monday, protesters launched a sit-down protest at the entrance of the homes of some coalition lawmakers and briefly halted traffic on Tel Aviv’s main highway. Ahead of the main demonstration in Jerusalem, hundreds were waving Israeli flags and protesting in Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa, holding signs reading “resistance is mandatory.”
“We’re here to demonstrate for the democracy. Without democracy there’s no state of Israel. And we’re going to fight till the end,” said Marcos Fainstein, a protester in Tel Aviv.
The overhaul has prompted otherwise stoic former security chiefs to speak out, and even warn of civil war. In a sign of the rising emotions, a group of army veterans in their 60s and 70s stole a decommissioned tank from a war memorial site and draped it with Israel’s declaration of independence before being stopped by police.
The plan has even sparked rare warnings from the U.S., Israel’s chief international ally.
U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides told a podcast over the weekend that Israel should “pump the brakes” on the legislation and seek a consensus on reform that would protect Israel’s democratic institutions.
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