American President Joe Biden, whose government had welcomed the “pause” announced by Netanyahu, pleaded again on Tuesday evening for abandoning the project. “They cannot continue on this path, and I think I have made myself understood,” said the American president on the sidelines of a visit to North Carolina. “I hope they drop it,” he later said of the bill, back in Washington. He added that, “in the short term”, he does not intend to invite Netanyahu to the White House. The “pause” announced by Netanyahu after the start of a general strike and the emergence of tensions within the majority was met with skepticism by protesters as well as by several political commentators. For Nahum Barnea, columnist of the daily Yediot Aharonot, the prime minister “knew how to turn a bitter defeat into a draw with beautiful words”. “Whatever he says or will say, few people believe him, and I think that trust in him is not high, including” on the right, he wrote. Initiated by one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history, the justice reform project gave birth to one of the largest popular mobilization movements in the country. If they accepted the mediation of President Herzog, Lapid and Gantz warned the government against any “cheating”. Alluding to the draft law on the composition of the commission in charge of selecting judges, one of the most contested aspects of the reform, the two parties warned in a joint statement that they will “immediately” leave the negotiation table if this text “is put on the parliament’s agenda “. For the government, the reform aims to rebalance the balance of powers by diminishing the prerogatives of the Supreme Court, which the executive considers politicized, in favor of the parliament. Its opponents believe, on the contrary, that the reform risks leading to an illiberal or authoritarian drift. The announcement of the suspension of the parliamentary examination of the project was preceded by lengthy negotiations between Netanyahu and his far-right partners, especially the Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who, according to the media, had threatened to leave the government in case of a break in the reform. Ben Gvir’s party announced the signing of an agreement between the two, granting the minister the creation of a civilian “national guard” under his authority, details of which have not yet been released. “It’s a victory for the protesters, but the one who really made Netanyahu fold and trample him was Itamar Ben Gvir (…), and he got from him a scandalous promise: the creation of a militia that would be under his orders”, denounced Yossi Verter, political correspondent of the Haaretz newspaper, on the front page of the left-wing daily. For Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Institute for Democracy, a think tank, “this is a ceasefire maybe to regroup, reorganize, and then potentially attack.” Several members of the coalition in power stated that the reform will be voted on on time. One of the collectives at the origin of the demonstrations against the reform announced the continuation of the protest movement “as long as the judicial coup is not stopped completely”. On Tuesday evening, demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv and in front of President Herzog’s residence in Jerusalem.

By Cora Sulleyman