Posted on 07/25/23
| News Source: NY Post
Israeli doctors declared a strike and black ads covered newspaper front pages on Tuesday in a backlash over the hard-right government’s ratification of the first part of a judicial overhaul that critics say endangers democracy.
With long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing his gravest domestic crisis, Israel’s military took its first known internal disciplinary action over the protests.
One reservist was fined 1,000 shekels ($270) and another given a suspended 15-day jail sentence for ignoring call-ups.
“A Black Day for Israeli Democracy,” read the ad on the front of major newspapers placed by a group describing itself as worried hi-tech workers.
The bill curbing Supreme Court review of some state decisions passed in a stormy Knesset parliament on Monday after an opposition walkout. As the vote took place, protesters were out in their thousands, some scuffling with police.
Protest leaders said growing numbers of military reservists would no longer report for duty if the government continued with its plans. Former top brass have warned that Israel’s war-readiness could be at risk.
However, opposition leader Yair Lapid asked protesting reservists to hold off pending any Supreme Court ruling on appeals against the new law.
Both a political watchdog group and the Israel Bar Association have filed challenges.
The crisis has opened a deep divide in Israeli society and hit the economy hard by triggering foreign investor flight, weakening the shekel and raising the spectre of a general strike by the Histadrut public sector union.
It has also strained ties with the West including close ally the United States which called Monday’s vote “unfortunate”.