For so long, threats to Israel have come from those outside its controversial borders, now ‘the great existential threat’ comes from within.
Every weekend this year, the 75th since the birth of Israel, tens of thousands of people have taken to its streets.
But they are not celebrating the creation of the Jewish state – they are fighting to protect it from what they fear is the greatest threat to its existence since 1948.
For a country whose very nationhood is still constantly questioned by external critics, this prevailing sense of doom is extraordinary given it is fuelled solely by its leaders.
Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Israel’s prime minister on December 29 last year, having previously led the country from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. The victory of his right-wing coalition came in Israel’s fifth election in four years, a period of instability in which both sides of politics struggled to govern in the Knesset, the country’s 120-seat parliament.
As it turned out, however, the chaos was only just beginning.
A week after reclaiming power, Netanyahu’s Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveiled a four-point plan to overhaul Israel’s highest court. For the fledgling democracy, with one house of parliament and no constitution, Levin’s proposal represented the most drastic change ever to Israel’s system of government.
Read the article by Tom Minear in the Herald Sun.