Israel mass protests are approaching climax

[pieter]

NOS News

22 july 2023
20:20 AM European Dutch Time

Israel mass protests are approaching climax: 'Democracy is in danger'

Angry Israelis take to the streets for 29 weeks in a row. Today, the protests are coming to a head with the end of a four-day march on parliament. The demonstrators are directing their anger at the government that is preparing 'undemocratic' legislative changes. Even the CIDI (Israel Information and Documentation Center) in the Netherlands is concerned about these reforms.

What exactly are those reforms? In short, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government wants to reduce the power of judges and increase the power of politicians. And CIDI director Naomi Mestrum finds this worrying.

Carrying out radical reforms is fine, she says, especially in a relatively young state like Israel. "But then you have to do that in good consultation with your opposition. It is not happening in a broad consensus now."

The Plans of Netanyahu

One of the plans is that from now on parliament can reverse decisions of the Supreme Court. The government also wants to appoint judges itself, who are also no longer allowed to test new laws. If the plans go ahead, the Supreme Court, the only body that controls politics, will be largely sidelined.

Whether the plans go ahead may be announced early next week, when parliament votes on one or more amendments to the law. It is not yet a done deal: there are also skeptics within the government parties. For example, the defense minister is trying to postpone the vote.

Big march on the highway

Tens of thousands of protesters marched this week from Tel Aviv to the Knesset, the parliament in Jerusalem. This resulted in impressive images of people with flags moving in a motorcade across the highway to the capital. The protest is not over yet: the activists plan to spend the night in tents near the parliament.

There were also demonstrations in many other places in the country. Not only 'ordinary' citizens express their concerns; former leaders of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, also support the protests. Just like former army chiefs of staff.

Activist Tomer Avital says he has never seen such a large protest in his country. He also accompanied himself. To compatriots who are not worried, he says: "Stop watching Netflix and take action, because our democracy is in danger."

Poland and Turkey

Avital works as a journalist and therefore initially did not want to express himself politically. But in recent months he not only participated in protests, he even organized them. "There is no other option." Avital points to countries such as Poland and Turkey, where politicians also want to restrict judges. "We will not let that happen in Israel."


Thousands of demonstrators march to Jerusalem.

Writer Samuel Hyde is also on the march. He emphasizes that judges are the only ones who test the government. "We have no constitution, no senate, no Congress. If you sideline the Supreme Court, no one controls the power of government."

Female rights

The government has become increasingly conservative in recent years. For example, the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party is the second largest party in the government. Women's rights activist Moran Zer Katzenstein therefore fears that equality in her country is over. "Whenever women's rights were threatened, the Supreme Court was on our side."

Netanyahu's reflections

Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading his sixth cabinet for several months. It is the most right-wing government ever in Israel. Netanyahu became prime minister for the first time in 1996. Why is he now coming up with these controversial changes in the law?

According to CIDI director Mestrum, this is because he wants to keep his ultra-Orthodox and far-right coalition parties happy. In addition, she points out, Netanyahu has been linked to corruption. So he would take every opportunity to strengthen his power.

In an earlier speech, Netanyahu said the reforms "only make democracy stronger". He calls stories about the demise of the rule of law 'absurd'. "It's all scare tactics." Proponents of the law also made themselves heard at the end of April: a large group of people demonstrated in favor of the prime minister's plans.

The Center for Information and Documentation Israel, as CIDI is called in full, is committed to the interests of Israel and Jews from the Netherlands. Usually the organization keeps aloof when it comes to domestic politics in Israel. But now director Mestrum makes an exception. "This coalition has some pretty extreme ideas."

According to the latest reports, the Israeli parliament will vote on one of the amendments to the law on Monday. Although some protesters still hope for a postponement. The outcome of that vote? "That's really hard to predict," says Mestrum.

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This is a very interesting interview and for me more interesting than Netanyahu’s interview, because Noah Hariri is a Historian who has his facts right.

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Lex Fridman



Lex Fridman is a Russian-American computer scientist, podcaster, and artificial intelligence researcher. He is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and hosts the Lex Fridman Podcast, a podcast and YouTube series.

Early life and education

Fridman is of Russian Jewish descent and was born in Chkalovsk, Tajikistan. His father, plasma physicist Alexander Fridman, was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and serves as the John A. Nyheim Chair Professor and Director of the C. J. Nyheim Plasma Institute at Drexel University's College of Engineering. His maternal grandmother was born and raised in Kharkiv, and his maternal grandfather was a machine gunner in the Red Army against the Nazis during World War II. His brother is Gregory Fridman, also a researcher in plasma physics.

When he was about 11, Fridman's family moved from Russia to the Chicago area. He attended Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois. He then went on to obtain BS and MS degrees in computer science at Drexel University in 2010, and completed his PhD in electrical and computer engineering at Drexel in 2014. His PhD dissertation, Learning of Identity from Behavioral Biometrics for Active Authentication, was completed under the advisement of engineering educators Moshe Kam and Steven Weber and sought to "investigate the problem of active authentication on desktop computers and mobile devices".

Career

Computer science

Fridman's career began at Google, where he worked on machine learning. He currently is a research scientist at MIT. In 2017, he worked on computer vision, deep learning, and planning algorithms for semi-autonomous vehicles. In 2019, he left AgeLab and assumed a researcher role at the university following a controversy surrounding a study conducted on Tesla Autopilot.

Lex Fridman Podcast

Fridman began his podcast in 2018, initially as part of the MIT course 6.S099 on artificial general intelligence. Its original title was the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, which was later changed to the Lex Fridman Podcast to reflect the wider range of topics it would address. Fridman uses the podcast to discuss "AI, science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power". The podcast is structured as a long-form interview program. Interviews are conducted in-person, typically running two to four hours in length. The podcast has featured musician Kanye West, 16th world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and technology moguls Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Fridman has also combined his interest in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other grappling sports with his podcast, such as interviewing UFC world champion Georges St-Pierre, Olympic Judoka Travis Stevens, Roger Gracie, John Danaher, and Craig Jones.

Personal life

Fridman plays the guitar and piano.[4][43] He also practices Brazilian jiu jitsu and holds a first-degree black belt under Rick and Phil Migliarese. He has competed in several grappling competitions, most notably in a match against Garry Tonon in 2013.

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Former Israeli Prime Minster Olmert to British TV: We are going into a civil war now


Former PM speaks to Britain's Channel 4, claims Israel faces civil war following the approval of the bill reducing the use of the reasonableness standard.

Elad Benari
Jul 25, 2023,



Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claimed on Monday that the country faces civil war following the approval in the Knesset of the bill reducing the use of the reasonableness standard.

“There is a threat. It is a serious threat. It’s never happened before, and we are going into a civil war now,” Olmert said in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4.

The interviewer then wondered aloud, “A civil war?” to which the former Prime Minister responded, “Yeah, I mean, civil disobedience with all the possible ramifications to the stability of the state and to the ability of the government to perform, and to the obedience of the large part of the Israeli population, to a government which is perceived by a large part of the population to be illegitimate.”

Ehud Olmert claimed, “Government has decided to threaten the foundations of Israeli democracy, and this is not something that we can accept or that we can tolerate.”

Olmert has in the past caused an uproar when he called for civil disobedience to protest the government’s judicial reform, but refused to retract those calls.

Last week, the former Prime Minister suggested that the US should downgrade relations with Israel in response to the proposed judicial reform.

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[karl]

Pieter

Very massive show of civil disobedience in protest of such a decision master minded by Mr. Netanyahu. On the surface as very plainly voiced by the media that Mr. Netanjahu is becoming a loose cannon in destroying the only voice of balance in Israeli government versus the Supreme court. What is missing is the background that forms the foundation of the issue presently on the table, in short, what we are looking at is only a one-sided view of this situation as voiced by the media. The media is only reason of existence is to report the news, not make it.

The above brings a great deal of suspicion upon a thinking mind. For one, who is to gain in the matter of power? For as with this seed of suspicion is the question of: is this a ploy by a ghost federal official for a matter of gain?

The obvious is not always the truth.

Karl

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/24/wapo-declares-trump-like-pm-benjamin-netanyahu-israels-biggest-threat/

Critics had long argued that the “reasonableness” doctrine allowed the left-leaning judiciary to abuse its power, which it tended to do against Israel’s conservative governments.

In reality, many of the reforms closely parallel existing practice in the U.S. and other democratic countries, with Israel’s judiciary beginning amassing extraordinary powers only in the 1990s.