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‘A time of emergency’: What you need to know about the fight over Israel’s court system

TEL AVIV (JTA) — In the coming days, Israel’s parliament is due to vote on a measure that, advocates on both sides say, will determine the country’s fate — or whether it can even survive.
It isn’t a peace deal or an attempt to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What it will do, if passed, is bar the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions it deems “unreasonable.”
Behind that somewhat technical language is a struggle over Israel’s soul. It’s an escalating fight that has seen the largest, most sustained protest movement in Israel’s history. It has seen demonstrators block highways, march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and pledge to boycott army service. It has seen both Netanyahu and his opponents warn that the end of democracy is nigh. And it has seen Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a figure meant to rise above the political fray, warn that the government’s push for major legislative change, and its critics, could lead to “real civil war.”
The reason for the dire pronouncements is that the “reasonableness law” is one piece of a broad plan, put forward by Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition in January, to significantly weaken Israel’s judiciary. If passed in its totality, the overhaul would sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power and independence, removing a major check on what the Israeli government can do.
But even though Netanyahu enjoys a solid majority in parliament, the plan, so far, has yet to be enacted. That’s largely due to a massive protest movement that says Netanyahu is endangering Israel’s democratic system. The demonstrations have brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets and led to widespread civil disobedience.
Both sides of the debate say the internal conflict is a test of Israel’s system of government. Now, a growing number of voices are using increasingly anxious language that would have been unthinkable just a year ago, from threats of street violence to warnings that the Israel Defense Forces could implode.
“This is a time of emergency,” Herzog said Sunday. “An agreement must be reached.”
The civil strife is occurring against the backdrop of heightened Israeli-Palestinian violence and while Netanyahu, 73, is on trial for corruption and has recently been hospitalized twice. Here’s a primer on the judicial overhaul, what supporters and opponents say is at stake, and what may happen next.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a vote in Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, March 22, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Netanyahu and his allies want to fundamentally change Israel’s court system.
At the end of last year, Israeli voters returned Netanyahu to office — and he assembled a coalition with far-right partners that holds 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Days later, his justice minister unveiled a plan that, in its original form, would have rendered the Supreme Court largely powerless.
The initial plan would have given the coalition complete control over the selection of judges, and would have allowed the Knesset to overrule Supreme Court decisions with a bare majority. Another measure took aim at the “reasonableness” clause.
Netanyahu and his allies portrayed the legislative package as a curb on an increasingly activist Supreme Court that was out of step with the country’s right-wing majority. Its composition, they charged, was a vestige of Israel’s secular, Ashkenazi elite and did not reflect the country’s ethnic and Jewish religious diversity, including the country’s large number of Mizrahi Jews.
But a growing number of critics — from centrist and left-wing Israelis to foreign leaders to American Jewish organizations — cautioned that the overhaul would endanger Israel’s status as a democratic state.
Because the governing coalition by definition commands a majority in parliament, they say, the court reform would effectively give Netanyahu and his partners complete control over all three branches of government. The court has historically been a protector of the rights of minorities — from Arabs to LBGTQ Israelis to liberal Jewish movements — and critics of the plan worry that it would put those safeguards at risk. Those worries are exacerbated, they say, because the prime minister leading the effort to weaken the judiciary is currently on trial.
A Tel Aviv protest at the start of Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, featured a sea of flags, April 25, 2023. (Ben Sales)
The overhaul effort has sparked a historic and growing protest movement.
Those critiques have coalesced into the largest protest movement in Israeli history, which has seen hundreds of thousands of Israelis take to the streets every week, many waving Israeli flags, to oppose the plan. Pro-government demonstrations, much less frequent, have also occurred.
Anti-government protest organizers have also escalated their tactics — blocking major highways, calling for strikes, crowding the main airport terminal and, this week, leading a days-long march of thousands of people from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And it has spread to cities across the United States and the globe, disrupting American Jewish gatherings in Israel and confronting Israeli officials on their visits abroad.
The most striking protest tactic has come from a growing group of IDF reservists — as of this week more than 10,000 — who have pledged to stop showing up for duty if the overhaul, or any piece of it, is enacted. Within Israel, the IDF is the country’s most widely trusted institution, and is seen as an indispensable guarantor of Israel’s security.
Because of its mandatory draft, it has also historically been viewed as a reflection of Israel’s diverse Jewish citizenry. But those who have pledged to boycott their duty say they are unwilling to continue risking their lives for a government that is no longer democratic.
The overhaul’s proponents, including Netanyahu, say that threats to refuse military service cross a bright red line in a society that faces external threats and prizes national service. In a recent address, Netanyahu said threats to avoid reserve duty as a pressure tactic violated the principle that the civilian government must wield control over the military.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog addresses the nation in a speech exhorting a delay on proposed judicial reforms, Feb. 12, 2023. (Courtesy Herzog’s office)
Efforts at compromise have failed and rhetoric is becoming only more severe.
Months ago, the government took steps to advance the major pieces of the judicial overhaul. A rapid spike in protests and criticism in March, however, convinced Netanyahu to pause the legislative effort and enter dialogue with his political opponents.
But those talks — brokered by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial — have collapsed. A few weeks ago, Netanyahu announced that he was restarting the legislative process with the “reasonableness law.”
Now, both sides are making arguments that, at their core, sound almost identical.
Critics of the plan say that a country without an independent and empowered court system cannot be a democracy. They have accused Netanyahu of ramming through a major change to Israel’s governing system without broad consensus, and point to surveys showing that most Israelis oppose the overhaul plan.
The plan’s supporters say that, in fact, they are the majority — pointing to the fall elections that their side won. The true failure of democracy, they say, is the elected coalition being rendered unable to govern due to a protest movement that is blocking roads and calling on soldiers to shirk their duty.
This week, the military reserve protests have led to more urgent warnings. The Institute for National Security Studies, a respected think tank, warned on Sunday that the IDF “is at risk of disbanding.”
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has a similar message.
“If we will not be a strong and unified army, if the best do not serve in the IDF — we will no longer be able to exist as a state in the region,” he wrote in an open letter.
View of the Jewish settlement of Eli, in the West Bank, Jan. 17, 2021.(Sraya Diamant/Flash90)
The internal Israeli turmoil is happening alongside increased Israeli-Palestinian violence.
In tandem with the conflict over the court reform, clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have escalated this year. More than 100 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in IDF military raids on terrorist cells, while more than two dozen Israelis have been killed by Palestinian attacks in the West Bank and Israel. There has also been conflict with Hamas in Gaza, and concern over Iran backing attacks on Israel.
Recent months have also seen a series of riots by Israeli settlers, who have entered Palestinian villages, torched cars, homes and shops and injured Palestinians in response to terror attacks. Palestinians have been killed amid the riots, and senior Israeli figures have described the riots as a “pogrom” or “terrorism.”
Hardline figures in Israel’s government have called for harsh tactics in response to the violence. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for a Palestinian village to be wiped out before walking the remark back and apologizing. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, has expressed sympathy for the rioters while also speaking out against vigilante justice.
While the riots are not directly connected to the overhaul effort, there are links. One of the right’s criticisms of the Supreme Court is that it has restrained Israel from expanding West Bank settlements, while critics worry that weakening the courts will mean removing an occasional protector of Palestinian rights. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir and other right-wingers have charged that the government is responding more harshly to the settler rioters than to disruptive anti-government protesters in Israel — something he has called “selective enforcement.”
President Joe Biden answers a question during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House during an official state visit, Dec. 01, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The situation is leading observers to question the U.S. relationship with Israel.
Heated discourse about Israel’s conflicts has spread to the United States. President Joe Biden has repeatedly criticized the judicial overhaul effort and has recently issued a series of warnings suggesting that if passed, the legislation could damage the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Speaking to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman last week, Biden said the protests display “the vibrancy of Israel’s democracy, which must remain the core of our bilateral relationship,” and said that Netanyahu needs to “continue to seek the broadest possible consensus here.”
Elsewhere in the Times opinion pages, Nicholas Kristof wrote that the recent news out of Israel has led him to question if “it really make[s] sense for the United States to provide the enormous sum of $3.8 billion annually to another wealthy country?” That annual foreign aid allocation is at the core of U.S.-Israel relations and has been portrayed as sacrosanct by presidents from both parties.
And last week, an address by Herzog to a joint session of Congress, meant to be a celebration of Israel’s 75th birthday earlier this year, took place shortly after a prominent progressive Democrat, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, called Israel a “racist state” — a remark she later walked back. Six other Democratic members of Congress boycotted Herzog’s speech.
What happens next?
The vote on the “reasonableness” bill will almost certainly take place in the coming days and, if Netanyahu’s promises are any indication, could pass along party lines. But that almost definitely won’t be the end of the struggle over the judicial overhaul, even as a large number of Israelis say they fear civil war.
Netanyahu’s right-wing allies, including Ben-Gvir, have vowed to pass the overhaul’s more sweeping components next, while opponents of the legislation have pledged to maintain and escalate their opposition.
It remains to be seen who will prevail in the conflict, or what winning might even look like after more than half a year of civil unrest. Supporters, opponents and observers of the overhaul have all made clear that at this point, what is at stake is no longer just a piece of legislation but rather the military, the governmental system and, perhaps, the future of the country itself.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.