Before Oct. 7, 2023, before the hostages, before the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond, Israel was being torn apart by a fight almost entirely within its own borders: the judicial overhaul.
Now, that debate is on its way back.
It feels like ancient history now, but just two years ago, Israelis were starting to rally in the streets against a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government whose most extreme version would have essentially rendered the Supreme Court powerless. Taken together, the judicial overhaul would have let the governing coalition choose the Israeli high court’s judges, and then override any decisions it didn’t like with a simple majority vote.
Proponents said a left-wing, elitist judicial system had struck down too many laws, effectively negating the will of the right-wing electorate. Critics of the reform said that in a country like Israel, where there isn’t really a separation between the legislative and executive branches, a move to weaken the judiciary risked giving the majority unchecked power.
That argument resonated with hundreds of thousands of Israelis, who took to the streets week after week in an unprecedented movement for self-styled “pro-democracy” protests against what they called a “coup.”
And they won. Even though the elected coalition had a majority, it managed to pass only one relatively minor piece of the plan. And that was struck down last January. By then, almost three months after Oct. 7, the country was at war, Israelis were in mourning and their minds were elsewhere. The protest movement had pivoted to humanitarian work and pushing for a hostage release deal against an unpopular government.
Fast forward one more year, and the landscape has changed again. The wars seem like they’re winding down, much of the country is exhausted and polls show Netanyahu’s popularity is rebounding.
Now, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of the effort, has resurrected the plan. And this time it might pass.
The provisions of judicial overhaul, part deux, are more limited than the original: The proposal changes the makeup of the panel that selects judges, giving more power to elected officials and less to the sitting judges. And it would make it harder for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to pass one of the so-called Basic Laws that take the place of a constitution. In return, the court would have to meet a higher bar for striking down laws, and wouldn’t be able to touch most Basic Laws.
Levin partnered with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, a former critic of the overhaul-turned-Netanyahu ally, to announce it. Levin called the new plan one that is “a real fundamental change, and on the other hand is deliberate and balanced.”
The proposal is already drawing backlash from the Israel Bar Association, which would see its representation on the selection panel eliminated, and whose leader called the new outline a “deceptive and dangerous proposal to implement the principles of the coup.”
And it comes as Levin has been resisting the appointment of a new chief justice, which the Supreme Court said he must do by Jan. 16. Parliamentary opposition leader Yair Lapid said he would “answer Yariv Levin immediately after he heeds the court order,” without giving further comment.
Another sign of relatively muted reaction came from Benny Gantz, a centrist opponent of Netanyahu who had warned against restarting the overhaul but whose party said on Thursday that it was examining the new outline.
One key question is whether the protest movement will be able to summon the energy for yet another round of mass demonstrations. It has spent the past year-plus marching for a hostage deal that has yet to happen. The anti-overhaul rallies of early to mid-2023 had an upbeat and even optimistic vibe, feelings that are harder to come by in protests now.
But that doesn’t mean the protest leaders aren’t trying. On Thursday, activists announced another Saturday night demonstration in the same spot that hosted the mass rallies of 2023.
“They won’t break us,” the flier says. “We are the majority.”
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