Photo Credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90
A police horse tramples an anarchist who disregarded the mounted officer’s warning to stop, Tel Aviv, July 11, 2023.

There were repeated clashes between police officers and protesters well into the night on either side of Ayalon Highway, in the Yehudit Bridge area. Time and again, dozens of protesters pushed their way down the exit ramps, and time and again the cops pushed back, on occasion using force, even hitting and kicking the lawbreakers. It’s how Israel Police routinely handles Haredim, Ethiopians, settlers, and Arabs. Now they finally enforced the law with privileged Tel-Avivians.

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One young woman complained in tears about the police brutality she endured: “They didn’t speak nicely to us,” she said. “One policewoman even said to me, Get the hell out of here. And they wouldn’t let us cross the street whenever we wanted.”

Ah, the humanity.

At 1:30 AM, a mounted policeman was documented beating a demonstrator with a plastic bat, after a bunch of lawbreakers managed to uproot a fence, threw it on the highway, and pushed in.

Police brutality.

The “Day of Disruption” against the judicial reform, which began very early Tuesday morning, following the Knesset’s passing in a first reading of the reasonability clause amendment with a 64-56 majority (representing the will of about 54% of the voters). The folks that lost the election burst into yet another explosive effort to take down a legally elected government by brutal means – as they have been doing since January. There were large protests in Ben Gurion Airport, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Main highways throughout the country were intermittently blocked throughout the day, including Ayalon, the coastal highway, the Ra’anana junction on Highway 4, Highway 6, and the roads in and out of Jerusalem.

But all of those disruptions, in which at least three police officers and one police horse were injured and 170 protesters were detained (70 of whom were released), did not succeed in making 56 Knesset mandate bigger than 64.

Incidentally, of the protesters who were not released (which was a new thing by itself – nobody spent a night in jail before since January), 31 are held in police stations around the country, and the rest were placed under house arrest.

The coalition plans to pass the reasonability amendment in second and third reading as early as next week, which means that Constitution Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman must produce a viable and final version by the end of the week. The anarchists suffering from math issues are banking on their continued disruptions to intimidate the government. There have been rumors––amplified by the three anti-reform TV channels, 11, 12, and 13––that the army will force the hand of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the threats of some 500 elite unit reservists to refuse to serve––and Gallant in turn will once again force Netanyahu to suspend the bill.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin and MK Simcha Rothman are opposed to formulating a watered-down version of the bill. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who initiated the softening of the current version, may still demand a more significant softening. He may insist on allowing the courts to hold on to the reasonability doctrine in extreme cases, such as the emperor Caligula appointing his horse as an MK (Likud? Otzma Yehudit?). Netanyahu may postpone the vote on the bill for another week, and schedule it for the end of July, when the summer session ends.

And this is how several thousand anarchists suppress the democratic rights of millions of right-wing voters, and they do it while shouting, “De-Mo-Krat-Ya!”

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David Israel
David writes news at JewishPress.com.