‘CONSTITUTIONAL COLLAPSE’

Israeli Lawmakers Get Rowdy Over Netanyahu’s Judicial Overall as Protests Swell

The plans would give Netanyahu, who’s facing corruption charges, more control.

Tens of thousands of protestors demonstrated outside Israel’s parliament on Monday, expressing their outrage over plans to give conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more control over the country’s judiciary system. The protests come as Israeli lawmakers engage in contentious debate over the plans, and one day after President Isaac Herzog pleaded for agreement on TV to avoid “constitutional collapse.” A vote by the Knesset Constitution Committee Monday resulted in the plans’ first section being sent to the plenum. The meeting itself was an impassioned affair, with some lawmakers being forcibly removed. Parliament members sang protest folk songs, while others exchanged insults of “fascist” and “traitor,” some with tears streaming down their faces, according to Reuters. The plans would give Netanyahu, who’s facing corruption charges, more of a say in the court’s justice appointments, while strangling the Supreme Court’s power to kill legislation or go against against the prime minister, according to Reuters. “I call on the heads of the opposition: Stop it. Stop deliberately dragging the country into anarchy,” Netanyahu said in a statement, according to Reuters. “Most Israeli citizens do not want anarchy. They want a substantive discourse and in the end they want unity.”