Mass protests have been taking place on Saturday nights in Tel Aviv for seven consecutive weeks and have spread around the country. Last Monday about 100,000 protesters filled the streets around Parliament and the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, according to estimates in the Israeli news media, though organizers put the number at more than double that.
The coalition leaders have pushed for a hasty first vote on the bills, defying a plea from Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pause the legislative process and allow room for a national dialogue and compromise. The president, a mostly ceremonial figure, has little executive power, but his voice is meant to be unifying and carries moral authority.
The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, a centrist, asked for a 60-day hiatus in the legislative process as a condition for any negotiations. The politicians driving the process have expressed some willingness to talk but have so far refused to halt their work even for a day.
“We won’t stop the legislation now, but there is more than enough time until the second and third readings to hold an earnest and real dialogue and to reach understandings,” Yariv Levin, the justice minister, told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on the eve of the initial vote.
But critics have dismissed the government’s position as disingenuous, arguing that once the bills have passed a first vote, only cosmetic changes will be possible.
Many Israelis, including some of those protesting, agree that some kind of judicial change is needed, but opinion polls suggest that a majority want it to be the result of dialogue and do not support the government plan in its current form.
The domestic tensions are also causing friction between the Israeli government and its closest ally, the United States. In a rare intervention in Israeli political affairs, President Biden, like Mr. Herzog, has called for efforts to reach a consensus.
