Israel government delays disputed judiciary bill amid mass protests

White House welcomes the pause in plans for judicial reforms; Ben-gvir says he agreed to the delay in return for a deal that he could form a National Guard

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday delayed a decision on biterly contested plans for a judicial overhaul amid fears that Israel’s worst national crisis in years could fracture his coalition or escalate into violence.

It was unclear how far the bill’s delay to next month’s new parliamentary session, ater mass protests and growing labour strikes, will satisfy either side or cool a crisis the army chief said on Monday made “this hour different to any before”.

“From a will to prevent the rit in the nation, I have decided to delay the second and third reading in order to reach a broad consensus,” he said in a TV address, calling the move “a chance to avoid a civil war”.

The White House on Monday welcomed the pause in plans for controversial judicial reforms by Israeli Netanyahu.

“We welcome this announcement as an opportunity to create additional time and space for compromise,” Press Secretary Karine Jeanpierre said. “A compromise is precisely what we have been calling for ....

“Democratic societies are strengthened by checks and balances and fundamental changes to a democratic system should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”

Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition partner, security minister Itamar Ben-gvir, said he had agreed to the delay in return for a deal that he could form a National Guard under his ministry - a move opponents fiercely criticise as giving him his own militia.

The government’s plan to tighten parliament’s control over judicial processes has triggered some of the biggest mass protests in Israeli history, with its opponents calling the move a threat to democracy.

Supporters of the law, including far-right football fans, have staged counter demonstrations and police said they were reinforcing ater social media threats of violent atacks on let wing Israelis.

Netanyahu’s decision to put off the legislation also followed opposition from the Histadrut labour union, which grounded flights at Ben Gurion airport with seaports, banks, hospitals and medical services also set to stop work.

The union said it had called off the strikes ater Netanyahu announced the delay.

Opposition leader Benny Gantz said the decision was “beter late than never” but that he would not compromise on the “basics of democracy” in any dialogue on the new law.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who had staged a rare intervention into politics earlier on Monday to plead with Netanyahu to halt his judicial overhaul for the sake of national unity, said stopping it was “the right thing to do”.

The crisis, among the worst in Israeli domestic political history, has come amid escalating violence in the West Bank, where more than 250 Palestinians, and more than 40 Israelis have been killed in the past year.

Palestinian residents of Huwara, a town near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Israeli setlers and soldiers had stormed the town on Monday, firing rifles into the air. Witnesses said setlers torched a vehicle and hurled stones at an ambulance trying to reach the wounded.

The foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council sent a joint leter to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, on Saturday, condemning the statements of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich about removing the town of Huwara from the map and denying the existence of the Palestinian people.

The Secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jassim Mohammed Al Badawi, confirmed that the leter addressed to Blinken embodies the position of the leaders of the GCC states regarding the issue of Palestine, stressing that the issue of Palestine is “the first issue of Arabs and Muslims.”

Al-budaiwi affirmed what was stated in the final statement of the 155th session of the Ministerial Council of the Cooperation Council, which was held on March 22, 2023, regarding the Cooperation Council’s support for the sovereignty of the Palestinian people over all Palestinian territories occupied since June 1967, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the guarantee of all legitimate rights to the brotherly Palestinian people, and the rejection of setlement in the occupied Palestinian territories.