Judicial reform or lust for power? Protests all about toppling gov’t, Lapid admits

It appears that Dershowitz was right in his assessment earlier this year. “This is a dysfunctional government and it needs to go home. This is our plan,” the Opposition leader declared on Saturday night.

By Atara Beck, World Israel News

Renowned attorney Alan Dershowitz told i24News in March that the Netanyahu government’s plan for judicial reform requires compromise. At the time, the massive protests across the country against the reforms were in full swing.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of the people who are involved in these demonstrations, Americans, and I have to tell you: They have no idea what’s going on. They have no idea what judicial reform means.”

Noting that in the 60 years of his career he has never seen such a protest about judicial reform – “there were no protests when the United States wanted to pack the court” – he said, “This is all about wanting to undo the election,” won by the Right in November 2022.

“This is all about [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. This is not about judicial reform,” he stated, urging both sides to work with President Herzog towards compromise. “This is not about democracy.”

Fast forward to this past week, on Saturday night, when large demonstrations were held across the country, including 100,000 in Tel Aviv, where protesters also blocked a main highway. Opposition leader Yair Lapid addressed a crowd on the outskirts of Haifa, where he blasted the government and blamed Netanyahu for the threats by many IDF reservists to end their service and other crises.

“This government attacked the chief of staff because he hates the truth, but they don’t have a choice. The problem isn’t the readiness of the IDF. The problem is with Netanyahu…

“Netanyahu has no control over anything. This is a dysfunctional government and it needs to go home. This is our plan…Fight them until they go…to fight until this government falls,” Lapid declared.

“It’s not far away. This government will fall and we will go to elections and come back with a true unity government. A decent, non-corrupt, non-toxic government that will begin to heal the wounds of the people of Israel,” he continued.

“Change comes when people decide they are not ready to give up. When they decide to stand up to the lies, and to the violence, and to say: Hope will win, truth will win, the Israeli majority will win. The Israeli majority will win over the extremist government. It is a huge majority, millions of citizens who say to the government: We will not give up our country, we will not give up Zionism, we will never give up on the future of our children.”

Lapid’s claim of having a “huge majority” is questionable. There were in fact two pro-reform demonstrations – one in Jerusalem in April, the other in July in Tel Aviv – where hundreds of thousands attended and chanted “We demand judical reform” and “64 Mandates” – referring to the majority that won the election.