Last Night’s Pro-Reform Protest: Exhilaration And Not

Yom Shishee

Friday

22 Elul 5783

September 8 2023

The Quote of the Day

“The High Court’s decision to stop food stamps is another expression of the gap between the High Court judges and the people. This is a decision that hurts the weakest and poorest in society.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin

What Levin was referring to was the outrageous injunction issued by the Court yesterday to halt the distribution of food stamps to the poor in advance of the upcoming holidays.

The irony of course is that those who oppose the judicial reforms ridiculously say that if they are enacted then the poor will be most adversely affected and their rights will be trampled on by the majority.

In reality, the poor are being trampled on now by a Court composed of elitists. 

The News on the Israeli Street

The war in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

IDF, Shin Bet, and Border Policeman captured 18 wanted terrorists spread out over the Palestinian settlements of Nachlin, Doha, Esqara, Beitat, Bardala, Bira, and Turmusayya.

Shooting attacks:

Palestinian terrorists fired on IDF troops in Jilazon.

Palestinian terrorists fired on the community of Shaked in northern Samaria.

Palestinian terrorists fired on IDF troops at the Jalama Checkpoint east of Jenin.

In all of these cases, the terrorists escaped. Fortunately, no Israelis were physically wounded.

“Rock”, Molotov, IED attacks:

Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis on Road 55 between Azzun and Nebi Elias (bus driver wounded), Ujah, between Avitar and Migdalim, Daheisha (Border policeman wounded), and at another dozen locations.

The El Al pilots’ war on the Netanyahus . . .

Once again, El Al pilots (mostly senior Air Force veterans) are refusing to fly PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife. “Once again” because they have previously refused to fly them to Paris and Rome for meetings.

This time it is to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York in 10 days. In fact, there appears to have evolved a tacit agreement among the airline’s pilots not to fly the Netanyahus anywhere.

Can you believe this?

The pilots of Israel’s so-called “national airline” are refusing to fly Israel’s prime minister to any location.

TODAY’S BLOG

Last Night’s Pro-Reform Protest: Exhilaration And Not

In some ways, last night’s protest in Jerusalem in front of the Supreme Court building was exhilarating and in some ways not.

The exhilaration felt by your humble servant came from being in a crowd of like-minded people all driven by the purpose of trying to bring sanity to our judicial system.

Such was the case last night as between 25,000 to 40,000 people gathered to voice their opinion that the Court should not even be considering the “Reasonableness Amendment” this coming week. No Court in Israel’s history has ever presumed to rule on an amendment to a Basic Law. 

But this Court is determined to arrogate even more power to itself.

Which leads to one of the reasons why the demonstration evoked something less than exhilaration. There is the widespread opinion among the pro-government supporters that I talked to last night that the situation next week is a done deal.

Your humble servant’s opinion is that the decision has already been made and written and the abominable Supreme Court President Esther Hayut has been practicing reading it in front of teleprompters–and no amount of protesting will change that.

Hayut wants to go out with a bang before she retires next month and leave her mark on the country much as the equally abominable Aharon Barak did decades ago.

The other reason that the event was less than exhilarating–and probably held down the crowd size– is the apparently accurate report that PM Netanyahu is willing to compromise on all elements of the judicial reform—leaving many of us to wonder at his leadership.

On that unhappy note, we here at OneIsrael wish you:

SHABBAT SHALOM!