The protesters accuse him of implying that the security tension was linked to the protest movement against judicial reform. He also announces that he has reconsidered his decision announced in March, but never implemented, to dismiss his Minister of Defense.
Hundreds of protesters gathered spontaneously in Tel Aviv and several other cities across the country following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s televised speech Monday night. It took less than an hour after the end of the speech for Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv to fill up, our correspondent in Tel Aviv noted, Sharon Aronowicz.
Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech went badly: he did not hesitate to criticize the opposition, implying that the escalation of violence in the Middle East was linked to the protest movement against judicial reform. He claimed that Israel’s enemies were taking advantage of the country’s political instability to attack – referring in particular to Israeli army reservists who threatened to stop serving the country if judicial reform were passed. He also accused the last government of failing to protect Israel and promised that his government would restore calm and security to the country.
For this, he reversed his decision which had caused a scandal in Israel: that of dismissing Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who had called for a pause in the justice reform project. This decision had triggered massive and unprecedented demonstrations in Israel, forcing the Prime Minister to announce a break in the legislative process for a few weeks, the time for negotiations with the opposition.
While violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been on an inexorable rise since the beginning of the year, after the inauguration of Binyamin Netanyahu at the end of December at the head of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, the conflict has taken on a broader dimension in recent days.
Deadly attacks, rocket attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, followed by Israeli reprisals: the region has been plagued by a wave of violence since the brutal irruption, on April 5, in the middle of Ramadan, of the police in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
(With AFP)