The opposition to these events, focused initially on constitutional elements, quickly expanded to embrace a wide variety of individuals, groups, professions, and sectors apprehensive of the implications of these moves for the protection of their rights, wellbeing, and guiding norms. The result of the veritable flood of government initiatives pursued via legislation, policy shifts, and decrees at a whirlwind pace is nothing short of a dramatic regime change. The declared aim of ultra-Orthodox, settler, and certain right-wing and religious elements which form the backbone of the incoming 37th government is to carry out a structural overhaul by reducing the authority of the courts, concentrating power in the hands of the elected majority, and implementing Jewish control over the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. They must be addressed directly, collectively, and courageously now. These differences cannot be defused either by fine-tuning adjustments to the court system or by ignoring their economic, social, security, and international ramifications. What started as a disagreement over governmental initiatives to reform the judiciary morphed into a sweeping confrontation over efforts to alter Israel’s already precarious democratic underpinnings, and is now being transformed into a full-fledged struggle over the contemporary meaning of Israel’s foundational principles. Israel’s domestic turmoil has escalated even more dramatically in the few days since President Herzog presented his “people’s framework” for judicial change, reflecting both the scope and the depth of the growing crisis that has enveloped Israel since the beginning of 2023.
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