Tel Aviv: On Thursday, Israel's former prime minister urged world leaders to avoid the country's current leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he moves forward with a plan to reform the justice system. Netanyahu was urged to slow down by the US and Germany, two of Israel's closest allies.
The unusual calls for restraint and international action came as tens of thousands of Israelis protested Netanyahu's plan in the streets once more. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who held the office from 2006 to 2009, advised world leaders to reject meetings with Netanyahu. He specifically addressed his appeal to Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, who will soon host Benjamin Netanyahu.
Olmert urged the leaders of the nations that were friends with Israel to forgo meetings with the Israeli premier. As a former Israeli prime minister, he acknowledged that his call was "quite extraordinary," but he continued that it was necessary given the circumstances. Olmert stated, "I believe the current Israeli government is purely anti-Israeli.
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He targeted the ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist parties that make up Netanyahu's far-right coalition, which opposes Palestinian independence and supports increased settlement building in Palestinian-claimed occupied territories.
Today's coalition partners of Netanyahu have strong ties to the West Bank settler movement and a history of making statements that are offensive to minorities, women, LGBTQ people, and Palestinians.
The current minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has previously been found guilty of supporting terrorist organisations and inciting racism. Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu's finance minister, recently demanded that a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank be "erased," but he later issued an apology in response to a public outcry.
Olmert stated that those who support the state of Israel should oppose the prime minister of that state.
An enquiry for comment was not immediately answered by a Netanyahu spokesman. With a plan to undermine Israel's Supreme Court and give his parliamentary coalition control over judge nominations, Netanyahu and his allies are moving forward with it right now.
According to Netanyahu, the proposal will redress a disparity that has given Israel's courts an excessive amount of power. The overhaul, according to critics, will undermine the nation's system of checks and balances and give the prime minister excessive power. Additionally, they claim that once the legal system is changed, Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges, may be able to evade prosecution.
Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel's symbolic government, presented a compromise plan to the people late on Wednesday. But Netanyahu swiftly rejected the package, calling it "one-sided" and biassed in favour of his rivals.
Israel is currently experiencing one of its worst domestic crises due to the overhaul. Over the past two and a half months, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, and the plan has sparked outrage from top legal figures, business leaders who claim it will harm the economy, and from within the nation's military, the organisation that Israel's Jewish majority trusts the most.
Reservists have sworn not to serve in the event of what they perceive to be a move towards autocracy.
On Thursday, protesters held a "day of disruption" for a third week, obstructing roads with thousands of people, including Tel Aviv's main thoroughfare.
On the streets leading to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, protesters painted a wide red and pink arc. Off the coast of Haifa, a small flotilla of boats blocked a shipping channel.
Important Israeli allies have also joined the discussion. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern about the overhaul plan and commended the Israeli president's efforts to find a "broad basic consensus" during a joint news conference with Netanyahu in Berlin.
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At a press conference with Netanyahu, Scholz stated, "As close friends of Israel with shared democratic values, we are following this debate very closely, and I cannot hide the fact that we're following it with great concern. "The judiciary's independence is a priceless democratic asset,"