‘Escalating resistance’ – Ports, roads blocked in anti-judicial reform protests

Reservists from the Israeli Navy blocked the Port of Haifa for the second week in a row, a move which economists have said will potentially cost the State of Israel millions of shekels.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

For the third consecutive week, demonstrators opposed to potential reforms to Israel’s judicial system protested in cities throughout Israel, blocking the port of Haifa and major roads, highways, and thoroughfares throughout the Jewish state.

Organizers pledged that the event this Thursday would be an “escalated” day of protests, due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and coalition lawmakers vehemently rejecting a “compromise plan” on the matter pushed by President Isaac Herzog.

Likud and other coalition parties dismissed Herzog’s proposal, which they said was an “insult to intelligence” and stripped the legislation of its intended purpose. The compromise did not address existing problems within the courts, the parties said in a statement.

On Thursday morning, police reported that at least five people had been arrested for vandalism after spray painting a long stretch of the road leading to the Supreme Court in bright red.

Highways 2 and 4, north of Tel Aviv, were blocked by demonstrators, along with numerous roads in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv University students placed barbed wire around the campus on Thursday morning, telling Hebrew language media that they were “putting up a barricade to protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Reservists from the Israeli Navy blocked the Port of Haifa for the second week in a row, a move which economists have said will potentially cost the State of Israel millions of shekels.

Another group of army reservists blocked the main road in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, and set up a mock army recruitment center.

“We have come to pass the burden of recruiting to the ultra-Orthodox population because if there is a dictatorship here, we will have to come here and recruit,” the group wrote on social media.

“We repeat: Without democracy, there is no people’s army,” the group added, in what appeared to be a reference to threats from reservists that they would refuse to serve, should the judicial reforms come to fruition.