Democracy, democracy, democracy. Today, that was the rallying cry of thousands of protesters in Israel. I just left the protest near the Knesset and the Supreme Court building about a mile from here in the crowds of the larger. Easy to imagine that any kind of interaction with police could turn quite dangerous.
Steve Hendrix is reporting in Jerusalem for the post. He was watching Monday as crowds gathered in front of the Knesset, Israel's legislative body. For months, Israelis have rallied against the country's right-wing government as it tries to force a drastic overhaul of the Supreme Court.
Steve Hendrix正在以《Washington Post》的名义在耶路撒冷报道。周一,他目睹了人群聚集在以色列立法机构之一的议会大厦前。数月来,以色列人民一直在抗议国家右翼政府试图强行彻底改革最高法院。
But things took a dramatic turn on Monday when strikes brought Israel to a halt. And when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would be putting its controversial judicial plan on pause. It's quite a scene of Pugel and Pandemonium here among the protesters in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu's residents. The dancing and the drumming have been going on pretty much all day.
But a look at after eight o'clock, the people in the crowd began looking at their phones. Then pretty soon, a huge cheer erupted. People began pumping their flags in the fists in the air. No one's leaving. This looks like they're going to be out here for quite some time.
From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Chris Velasco, your guest host. I'm from Monday, March 27th. I believe in the Israeli people. I believe in courts. I believe people will choose the right thing if they'll have to choose between obeying their dictator and obeying the law. That's what I believe. Today, the crisis of democracy in Israel. On Monday, Israelis shut down the country with protests and strikes. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paused plans to gut the power of the Supreme Court, but the outrage over his audacious moves might not be over yet.
Steve, can you walk us through what's been happening in Israel for the last 24 hours or so?
史蒂夫,你能向我们介绍一下过去大约24小时以来在以色列发生了什么吗?
Well, this prolonged upheaval in the country really that began in January when the government surprised everyone by saying they had this kind of radical plan to remake the judicial system here. It's been going on with protests week after week. Really came to a head last night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his own defense minister.
This was the official who would have been kind of the first person to openly call for a halt to this judicial reform project that has caused so much division in the country.
这位官员本是第一个公开呼吁停止这个引起国内分歧的司法改革项目的人,他有些善良。
Netanyahu came back from a trip to the UK. He promptly fired the defense minister, Galaunt, and almost immediately that began sort of the climax of the whole thing it felt like. A number of even his own Lakoud party members called for him to reconsider that firing, to pause the push to get these legislative packages through the parliament, the Kineset.
Labor unions said they were immediately planning a strike effective this morning. And really quite an astonishing mass demonstration. We've seen quite a few of those in recent weeks, but I don't know if I've ever seen tens of thousands of people coming out of their houses on a Sunday night. This was like 9 p.m. Both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the centers were just overwhelmed. Got a little bit ugly in both places with police pushing back with water cannons in Jerusalem and forcing some highways open in Tel Aviv. So that was last night and then today that general strike took hold and it's been a crazy day.
And all of that leads us to today where Netanyahu made an announcement that basically offered some degree of resolution to this, right?
这一切都导致了今天的情况,就是内塔尼亚胡发表了一个宣言,基本上提供了一定程度的解决方案,对吧?
Yeah, I mean it was back and forth all day. It started with a general strike that affected pretty much all of the country, even the airport.
对啊,一整天都是反复不定的。开始是全国性的大罢工,甚至机场也受影响了。
I'm waiting my flight. Normally it's okay. It would be not cancelled, but the country is on fire. It's okay for me, even if I have to sleep in the airport for them to stay here and to support Israeli people because I know that it's important for them to have a free country.
There were no departing flights for most of the day. Clearly there was turmoil inside of the governing coalition. You could tell from the public statements of the various officials that some people were really urging the Prime Minister to pause the judicial reforms. Others were saying that if he did that, they would potentially leave the coalition, which would bring down the government.
And then about eight o'clock the Prime Minister made a televised address.
然后大约八点钟,首相发表了一份电视讲话。
It's a clear idea and a solution to the issue of the country's economy. He said he was, in fact, going to freeze the judicial reform project.
这是一个明确的想法,也是解决国家经济问题的方案。他说他实际上打算暂停司法改革项目。
So Steve, can we back up here for a second for people who haven't been following the story? What judicial reforms is Netanyahu trying to push through and why have they proven to be so controversial?
From the point of view of Netanyahu and the more right-wing parties in Israel, the ultra-orthodox, religious parties, the nationalist, settler parties, the Supreme Court in Israel has taken on far too much power. At the expense of elected officials is their point of view.
On a practical level, the court is often the body that stops some of their more controversial projects, including the expansion of settlements. So there's a long-time tension there that now that the this government that was elected last November is probably the most conservative right-wing government in Israel's history.
So this was a priority of theirs, even though it wasn't something they campaigned on, almost within days of their taking power at the end of December. They announced this quite sweeping reform that would have given them more power over the selection of judges, the ability to overrule the Supreme Court decisions by a simple majority of the Knesset.
And this was a surprise and kind of a stunning shock to the rest of the country, as it were, who viewed that kind of curtailment of judicial independence as really an attack on the balance of powers. And any democratic move that, in their view, would have set Israel on the path to authoritarianism.
This sounds like a pretty tremendous deal for the people of Israel. Can you tell us who who is out in the streets protesting and what are they saying?
这听起来对以色列人来说是个非常不错的交易。你能告诉我们街上在抗议的人是谁,他们在说些什么吗?
Well, many of the people we saw today were people who had been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu in his governments for many years. But there's also been a huge number of newcomers to this protest. And most notably, members of the military, both active duty and the reserve corps that are really important to Israel's military readiness, they have been out and they've been public, and they're quite a number of them today.
Many people are saying it's their involvement that has really turned the tide here in this country. The military here is quite revered among Israelis. And when they began pledging not to participate in training, that was a shocking moment. And I think that was kind of a turning point here. Also today, we did see a sizable number of pro-government protesters. They were responding to calls from some of the more conservative members of Netanyahu's government. And at the end of the day, there were tens of thousands of religious, lecude supporters, members of the public who thought judicial reform was not only a good idea, but was an appropriate consequence of an election that they won.
So for the people who turned out today specifically to protest this potential judicial reforms, what's your sense of their end game that they're after here? What do they ultimately want? And how likely do you think that outcome is?
Well, they certainly got the biggest thing they've been asking for, which was just to stop the process of passing these court reforms into law. And that was really at the 11th hour. In fact, one of the more controversial pieces of legislation was made into law within the last 48 hours.
That's a bill that would make it a lot harder to strip a public official from his duties if he's convicted of a crime. And of course, the prime minister himself is on trial for corruption charges right now. So they're very happy that that process has stopped.
But in the course of agreeing to freeze this process, Netanyahu said that there were other things would happen. The most notable one that everyone is trying to figure out is that he would give one of his cabinet members, Itamar Bin Gavir, who's a very well-known, quite radical, settler leader, who is now the public security minister, would get his sort of own national guard unit.
Now, many of the anti-government protesters that I talked to tonight, they were certainly happy about the freezing of the Judicial Reform Bill. They had a lot of questions about what it would mean for this politician to have what sounds like his personal militia.
Give us if you can, a sense of the temperature there, by which I mean protests have been happening, as you mentioned in Israel for months now. And obviously things have come to a bit of a head. But the events of Sunday, were they the only thing that kind of precipitated this ramp up in activity or were things kind of ramping up this whole time anyway?
It really has been building to this for quite some time. The protests continued to grow larger and larger every week. They were on a couple days a week, and now they're on three or four or five days a week. Jerusalem, where I am, is loaded with police, with soldiers, with horse platoons. There are water cannons staged at the kineset that I saw today. Water cannons were used last night on the street in front of the Prime Minister's residents.
That's been a feature of these protests throughout, quite an aggressive response by law enforcement. They have been largely peaceful today. The day's not over. And as I said, for the first time, some of the most conservative right-wing politicians have called for their supporters to come to the streets. And some of those groups have said they intend to do that. So everyone is on guard. The police are certainly here, and we just hope to get to the night without this turning much uglier.
Yeah, I think I speak for all of us when I say that's what we all hope for as well. It's been a trying day for the Israeli people as well, not least which because the strikes that you mentioned earlier kind of hit in a lot of different ways. I think we had heard that all flights sort of departing Israel had sort of ceased entirely. What else have the Israeli people kind of had to go through today? There was a general shutdown. You know, a lot of the shopping centers and malls closed except, as I understand it, grocery stores and pharmacies. The doctors union participated in the strike, so non-emergency care was affected.
The airport shutdown was something we usually only see here when there's an active military escalation happening with Hamas and Gaza. That was quite a shock to people that the head of the airport authority who was actually a member of Netanyahu's LaKud party participated. That was one of the things that really told people that the thing is kicked into another gear. So while it was a day of quite significant displacement, it also had sort of an electric feeling. I mean, people, I believe, are a little bit tired, but certainly if you were one of the many people who have devoted your time to opposing this legislation, today did feel like something was happening and I can only imagine, you know, how pleased they are that it broke their way in the end.
After the break, we talk about the people supporting Netanyahu's bid to remake the courts, and how dramatically this move could reshape Israel's democracy. We'll be right back.
Steve, you've mentioned Netanyahu in the LaKud party a few times, but my understanding this is a coalition government. So can you talk us through some of the other supporters and other factions and forces that have kind of lent support to Netanyahu as he tries to push this idea of kind of reshaping the way courts and Israel work?
Well, Benjamin Netanyahu has been in power longer than any other Israeli prime minister. He's a controversial figure. He has in fact sort of worked his way through many of his former allies. So when these elections came around, he was only able to put together a parliamentary majority by turning to some of the most extreme right-wing parties in the country. Two of them in particular. One of them is led by its mar bin Gavir. He's the former attorney for settlers who his party has advocated for the expulsion of what he called, quote, disloyal, quote, Arabs, meaning Palestinians in Israel who run a foul of the Israeli majority.
He was a politician who was considered sort of untouchable in this country. He was quite a shock to many people, including many of his supporters, when Netanyahu made an alliance with him. But there was really no other way for him to get back into power. It was Netanyahu's LaKud party is the largest single party in the country. But to get that majority, he has to have a coalition with the ultra-orthodox parties. And then this case, parties that were considered sort of on the fringe of Israeli politics before now. That's what has changed the dynamic and produced this push for judicial reform.
Among other changes, that's really represent quite a change for Israel. So as you mentioned, Netanyahu has been in power on and off for an incredibly long time. And my understanding is he's just kind of barely hung on in at least a few elections. But part of the sort of tenuousness of the situation seems to stem from the fact that he himself is facing corruption charges, right?
He is. He's facing charges on bribery, breach of trust, and fraud going back several years. Many of them having to do with his relations with wealthy donors who had business with the Israeli government. Criminal cases move quite slowly in Israel. So he's about two years into a court case that might, in fact, take a few more years to resolve. And he has said that these reforms would not directly impact his trial. He would, he promised not to let that happen.
On the other hand, some of his coalition partners have said in various settings that they intended to use their power to protect him from prosecution. But one thing that is true is that among these reforms, as they call him, would be one that would let the coalition have a much greater say in the composition of the Supreme Court, which is now composed of judges and justices that are picked by a combination of other judges and justices and lawyers, committees, and some members of the politicians from the Knesset.
These changes would put the politicians pretty much in charge of picking the majority of justices. And people have pointed out the prime minister's criminal case is almost certainly going to get to the Supreme Court might be a few years. And by which time his coalition may have chosen most of those justices. So it's a popular theory here that his motivation is, you know, very much about protecting himself from prison.
So now that Netanyahu has said his judiciary plan has been delayed, where does that leave us? And what's your sense of what happens next? Well, what he said was it's going to be frozen or paused. There have been calls from all sides to approach this in a different way to open the process to negotiations with the opposition, for example. So in theory, that's what could happen.
The Knesset is about to go on recess in about a week at the beginning of the Passover holidays here. That would be a time when these discussions could occur. I don't think people have a lot of hope that there's tremendous amount of goodwill between the government and the opposition and the various parties here. Some people assume that frozen means frozen forever. It's kind of hard to imagine how they would reintroduce this process that blew up so thoroughly in their faces.
On the other hand, this really is a project important to key members of his coalition. If they decide it's too important to ignore, they have the leverage to force his hand or to bring down the government. So while this feels like the climax of this remarkable three week period of protest, it does not feel like a resolution to the entire issue. And as always in Israel, I very hesitant to try to predict what might happen from here.
Steve, thanks so much for joining us. Much obliged, thanks. Steve Hendrix is our reporter in Jerusalem.
史蒂夫,非常感谢您加入我们。非常感谢。史蒂夫·亨德里克斯是我们在耶路撒冷的记者。
That's it for post reports. Thanks for listening. Today's show was produced by Eliza Dennis. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Rena Flores. Thanks to Jesse Mezzner Hague.
I wanted to remind you also about a chance to experience post reports live in person. On April 13th, our host to Martin Powers will be live in conversation with bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld. She's the author of books you might know like eligible, prep, and American wife.
Her latest novel is Romantic Comedy, which tells the story of a late night comedy writer's search for love. Curtis has this tremendous talent for bringing complex women to life on the page. It's on full display in this new book and Martin has been all about it.
The conversation will be live on April 13th at 7 pm in Washington, DC at 6th and I in partnership with politics and pros. The event will also be live streamed, so there's still an option if you can't make it to DC. You can purchase tickets at 6th and I dot org. That's s-i-x-t-h and the letter i dot org.
这次谈话将于4月13日晚上7点在首都华盛顿第6和I街举行,与政治和专业人士合作举办。活动也将进行现场直播,如果您不能来到华盛顿,仍有观看的选项。您可以在6th and I dot org购买门票,那是字母s-i-x-t-h和字母i点org。
We'll also have more details in our show notes and we hope to see you there. I'm Chris Valesco. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington post.
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