Beginning in late January, Israel has been rocked by a series of massive weekly protests against planned judicial reforms. Concentrated in Tel Aviv, Israel’s former capital and easily its most secular city, these protests have become increasingly disruptive. So much so that the far-right coalition government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, appears poised to suppress them by force. Political commentators in Israel have begun to speak of the protests as evidence of a fundamental disagreement over the core nature and purpose of the Israeli state. About the only thing both sides can agree on is that Israel cannot survive such deep-seated divisions.
The strangest aspect of the Israeli protests, from a New Zealand perspective, is that the judicial reforms proposed by Netanyahu’s government would only confer upon Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, powers which the New Zealand House of Representatives has not only exercised for decades, but which have also been seen, by an overwhelming majority of Kiwi legislators, as critical to the health of New Zealand’s democracy.
