Israeli Parliament Passes Controversial Judicial Law Over Heavy Protests

Israel's governing coalition voted Monday to curb the supreme court's powers, setting the stage for continuing protests and a potential boycott of the military by enraged reservists in the country's biggest-ever domestic crisis.

The Knesset voted 64 to 0 for the measure, after members of the opposition boycotted the vote once it was clear that they had no hope of stopping the measure. The judicial reforms are part of a deeply contentious package of changes to the courts sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government.

“We have taken the first step in a historic process to correct the judicial system,” Justice Minister Yarin Levin said from the Knesset rostrum.

The vote was a huge victory for Netanyahu, who left a hospital Monday morning to attend the vote after heart surgery and is currently on trial on corruption charges.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters in favor of and opposed to the bill had filled the streets of Israeli cities beginning on Sunday morning. On Monday, police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators outside the Knesset; 19 were arrested. An estimated 150 companies, including Israel's two biggest banks, closed down for the day to protest the law.

Last-minute attempts to amend the bill failed and two compromise frameworks floated by a union leader and by President Isaac Herzog were rejected, the Times of Israel reported..

The new law bars the courts from examining the “reasonableness” of cabinet and ministerial decisions.

“This is a national emergency,” Herzog said before the vote. “We have to reach an agreement.” 

But within hours, as the voting process began, opposition Labor party leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid said there was no hope the bill would be softened.

"In the last few weeks we made every effort to reach broad agreements as we promised, but we had conditions and the main condition was to preserve Israeli democracy," Lapid said on Twitter. "With this government it is impossible to reach agreements that preserve Israeli democracy."

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was Lapid and his allies who had scotched any chance of consensus. “We left no stone unturned until the last minute but the opposition unfortunately opposed” compromise, he said.

The so-called "reasonableness" bill approved on Monday removes the supreme court's ability to overturn government decisions. Netanyahu's reforms would blunt the power of Israeli courts, which the ruling coalition accuses of overreach.

The prime minister was in parliament for the vote just hours after being discharged from hospital following emergency surgery Saturday to implant a cardiac pacemaker.

On Sunday night, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu to slow down passage of the bill.

“Given the range of threats and challenges confronting Israel right now, it doesn’t make sense for Israeli leaders to rush this — the focus should be on pulling people together and finding consensus,” Biden told Axios in a statement.

Israel has been roiled by sometimes massive protests in the seven months since Netanyahu's judicial package was first introduced.

Thousands of reservists, including air force pilots, have vowed to avoid service, an unprecedented display of dissent in the military. Former heads of Israel's army and security services, ex-chief justices, and legal and business leaders have all publicly opposed the judicial overhaul.

Lapid said the opposition would appeal to the high court, and urged reservists to hold off on any boycott of their military service. "I call on the reservists whose hearts are broken today, wait, let the High Court discuss the law and only then make the most difficult decision of all," he said.

Netanyahu's coalition, dominated by ultranationalist and religious parties, holds a 53 percent majority of the Knesset, with 64 out of 120 seats.

Lapid tried to spin his loss on Monday as "a show of weakness from Netanyahu."

"There is no prime minister in Israel," Lapid said. "He is a puppet on a string of messianic extremists."