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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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Pledges of Unity in Beijing Mask Deep Skepticism Among Iran, China, Russia
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands as they meet, in Beijing, China, Sept. 2, 2025. Photo: Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Beijing on Tuesday, joining Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin as the three nations aim to project a united front against the West, even as the stability of their partnership remains uncertain.
Iranian and Russian officials, along with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will attend Beijing’s military parade this week to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The high-profile gathering comes after Pezeshkian and Putin held talks in China on Monday on the sidelines of the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin.
During a joint press conference, the Iranian president hailed Tehran’s cooperation with Moscow as “highly valuable,” adding that continued implementation of their 20-year treaty signed earlier this year would further strengthen ties and expand collaboration.
Putin also noted that the relationship between the two countries is “growing increasingly friendly and expanding” amid mounting pressure and sanctions from Western countries.
However, these remarks come after an Iranian official accused Russia without evidence of providing intelligence to Israel during the 12-day Middle Eastern war in June which allegedly helped the Jewish state target and destroy Iran’s air defense systems.
Mohammad Sadr, a member of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council and close adviser to former President Mohammad Khatami, claimed Israel’s precise strikes on Iranian air defense systems were suspicious.
He noted Russia’s refusal to support Iran during the war, saying that Moscow had shown a “bias in favor of Israel” and that the recent conflict demonstrated the “strategic agreement with Russia is nonsense.”
“This war proved that the strategic alliance with Moscow is worthless,” Sadr said during an interview with BBC Persian, referring to the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
“We must not think that Russia will come to Iran’s aid when the time comes,” he continued.
Earlier this year, Moscow and Tehran signed a 20-year strategic partnership agreement, further strengthening military ties between the two countries.
According to Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Iran views all partnerships with deep suspicion, and its relationship with Russia is no exception.
“Tehran has long accused Moscow of enabling Israeli strikes against its assets in Syria — well before Assad’s collapse — by deliberately switching off its S-400 systems,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner, referring to recently deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian air defense systems.
“The Moscow–Tehran relationship is less an alliance in the traditional sense than a transactional partnership,” he continued. “At this stage, it is unclear whether either side truly benefits from the arrangement.”
With European powers now formally pursuing the reimposition of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, Sayeh explained that the Iran-Russia partnership is further complicated, as the restrictions will once again limit arms sales and nuclear-related trade with the Islamic Republic.
“This may drive the regime to lean more heavily on Beijing, and some reports suggest it already has,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner.
According to some reports, China may be helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel.
“The unresolved question is whether China views Tehran as a worthwhile bet, one worth risking violations of UN sanctions for, or whether it is instead watching Iran’s overlapping crises of water shortages, power outages, and economic decline with caution, skeptical of openly extending support,” he continued.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing. The two sides also recently signed a 25-year cooperation agreement, held joint naval drills, and continued to trade Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
At the SCO summit in Tianjin earlier this week, Tehran described its ties with China as “flourishing,” pointing to a strategic pact similar to the one it signed with Russia.
“The 25-year agreement with China is under implementation and progressing. Our bilateral relations are very good and expanding. We value our relationship with China,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said during a press conference.
According to Jack Burnham, a research analyst at FDD, China’s assistance to Iran reflects Beijing’s long-standing practice of offering support when convenient and remaining discreet when tensions escalate.
“Still set firmly on its back foot, the [Iranian] regime may be looking for any possible friend in its foxhole, but the 12-day war should have convinced Tehran that Beijing only arrives when the weather is fair and risks tolerable,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.
After European countries moved to begin the process of reimposing UN sanctions on Tehran last week, China and Russia sided with Iran in opposing the move, once again favoring cautious diplomacy over direct support for their supposed partner.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Chinese, Russian, and Iranian foreign ministers condemned Britain, France, and Germany’s attempt to restore economic sanctions under the “snapback mechanism,” calling the move “legally and procedurally flawed.”
Our joint letter with my colleagues, the Foreign Ministers of China and Russia, signed in Tianjin reflects the firm position that the European attempt to invoke “snapback” is legally baseless and politically destructive. By declaring the E3’s move null and void, we have placed on… pic.twitter.com/YC4LKNkxMX
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) September 1, 2025
Both China and Russia are signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, along with the three European countries known as the E3.
In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear agreement.
The US and E3 have sought to reignite talks aimed at reaching a new nuclear agreement following Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
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Teachers Unions Across US Under Fire for Alleged Antisemitism
National Education Association president Becky Pringle leads hundreds of demonstrators in chants during a rally to end US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, in Washington, DC, US, on, June 9, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Teachers unions across the United States have come under intense scrutiny from both Jewish activists and federal lawmakers for allegedly promoting antisemitic ideas and fostering a hostile environment toward their Jewish members.
The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, for example, has opened an investigation into the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union, over allegations that its policies and materials discriminate against Jewish members.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the committee’s chairman, sent a letter late last month to NEA President Becky Pringle demanding documents tied to what he described as “antisemitic content” in the union’s 2025 handbook and its decision to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) over its support for Israel.
“The NEA’s 2025 handbook … contains passages and priorities that are hostile towards the Jewish people,” Walberg wrote, citing language that he said downplays the uniquely Jewish suffering of the Holocaust and promotes lessons on the so-called Palestinian “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
In July, the NEA refused to adopt as policy a ban on the ADL voted for by the group’s Representative Assembly during an annual conference.
“The National Education Association stands firmly for every student and educator, of every race, religion, and ethnicity, and we unequivocally reject antisemitism,” the NEA told JNS in response to Walberg’s letter. “We have fought against all kinds of hate, including antisemitism, throughout our history and remain focused on ensuring the safety of Jewish students and educators.”
The congressional probe comes as teachers unions across the country face mounting criticism from Jewish educators and civil rights advocates who say the organizations are failing to protect them, and in some cases are actively fostering hostility.
In Massachusetts, the Zionist Organization of America filed a sweeping civil rights complaint last week against the Massachusetts Teachers Association, accusing the organization of creating a discriminatory environment. The filing cites union-distributed images and posters viewed as antisemitic, including one showing a dollar bill folded into the shape of a Star of David and another reading “Zionists [Expletive] Off.” Some Jewish educators say they have already left the MTA over its stance.
In New York, meanwhile, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has come under fire from its own Jewish members for their responses to antisemitic incidents in schools. The criticisms stem in part from an incident at Hillcrest High School, where a Jewish teacher was reportedly forced to lock herself in an office during an anti-Israel protest. Union critics also blasted the UFT for endorsing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel who has been accused of antisemitism.
“How can we feel safe? When our teachers get attacked, our union says little and does nothing. When our protected rights are infringed upon, our union says little and does nothing. When they need us, they pretend we matter, and when they don’t, they ignore our concerns,” Moshe Spern, head of the United Jewish Teachers caucus, said last week at an “End Jew Hatred” rally, according to the New York Post.
Spern noted that more than 150 teachers are moving to cancel their union dues in protest.
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Iran’s Executions in August Jump 70 Percent Compared to Previous Year as Rights Groups Warn of Troubling Surge
Illustrative: A February 2023 protest in Washington, DC calling for an end to executions and human rights violations in Iran. Photo: Reuters/ Bryan Olin Dozier
The Islamic regime in Iran accelerated its execution machine last month, killing at least 152 prisoners according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
The figure represents a surge of 70 percent compared to the 94 executions conducted in August 2024.
While Hengaw has identified 148 of those killed last month, four individuals remain unknown. Two people killed include Roozbeh Vadi, alleged to have engaged in “espionage for Israel,” and Mehdi Asgharzadeh, an alleged ISIS member. Iran executed at least five women for murder and one woman on drug charges.
According to Hengaw, two or more of the executions took place in public in Beyram and Kordkuy, cities in the country’s southern and northern provinces, respectively.
On Monday, the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) released a report of human rights violations in Iran during August, noting that the number of executions had increased 40 percent compared to June and July, bringing the total execution count to 837 for the year. In comparison, the Islamic regime executed 930 people for the entire year of 2024.
HRANA broke down last month’s executions by charges, finding 87 drug offenses, 60 murder charges, two rapes, one for security offenses, and one person’s offenses are unknown. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, during the first half of 2025, nearly half of Iran’s executions targeted those convicted over drugs.
Iran killed one person on the charge of “corruption on earth,” which translates from the Koranic term “mofsed-e fel-arz” (مفسد فی الارض), a vague concept that Islamic judges have often applied toward political dissidents, alleged spies, or religious converts.
One tool that HRANA identifies Iran regularly deploying in its judicial system is forced confessions.
“Extracting forced confessions from political and ideological defendants, followed by broadcasting them on state television, is one of the regime’s routine practices against its opponents,” the human rights group stated. “In 2024, HRANA documented 28 cases of forced confessions. This month as well, Iran’s state television aired the forced confessions of a group of Christian converts.”
HRANA also found 73 arrests last month for citizens speaking out about their political views and beliefs; in addition, the state sentenced 27 people to 658 months in prison, 132 months of exile, and 130 lashes for speech offenses.
United Nations spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned last week that the human rights situation in Iran could be even worse than documented figures suggested.
“The high number of executions indicates a systematic pattern of using the death penalty as a tool of state intimidation, with disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities and migrants,” Shamdasani said. “Public executions add an extra layer of outrage upon human dignity … not only on the dignity of the people concerned, the people who are executed, but also on all those who have to bear witness”
Shamdasani warned that “the psychological trauma of bearing witness to somebody being hanged in public, particularly for children, is unacceptable.” She argued that the death penalty “should never be imposed for conduct that is protected under international human rights law.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday announced the capture of eight people accused of aiding Israel’s Mossad espionage agency. During Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June, police arrested as many as 21,000 individuals.
Australia announced the expulsion of Iran’s ambassador on Aug. 26, giving the diplomat seven days to leave following the discovery that the Islamic regime had directed antisemitic terrorism against the country’s Jews.
“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”
Mike Burgess, director general of Australia’s security agency, said “they’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of organized crime gangs to do their bidding or direct their bidding,”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Aug. 24 that “they want Iran to be obedient to America. The Iranian nation will stand with all of its power against those who have such erroneous expectations … People who ask us not to issue slogans against the US … to have direct negotiations with the US only see appearances … This issue is unsolvable.”