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At unusual counterprotest, right-wing demonstrators air grievances against Israel’s courts
JERUSALEM (JTA) — After three months of demonstrations dominated by detractors of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan, supporters of the proposed reform took to the streets Monday, making their voice heard in Jerusalem and across Israel.
Gathered outside the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, thousands of pro-reform protesters, including settlers bused in from the West Bank, sought to back Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, even as the prime minister announced his intention to temporarily suspend the plan.
“We are trying to create counter-pressure to the demonstrations of the left,” said Yisrael Entman, who lives in the Kokhav HaShahar settlement and was accompanied by his wife and five children.
It was the first major demonstration by supporters of the Netanyahu government’s now-paused legislation to overhaul the country’s judiciary to sap the independence and power of the Supreme Court. Both proponents and critics of the legislation say it would benefit Israel’s right, which largely believes that the courts are out of step with mainstream sentiment. They also share the view that the dispute is not just about how Supreme Court justices are appointed but about what values will prevail in Israel.
“Israel cannot have a liberal approach devoid of Judaism,” Entman said. “If you destroy the Jewish character of Israel we have no justification for being here.”
He and others at the rally offered a laundry list of grievances against the court, including the way it has deployed the 1992 Basic Law on Human Freedom and Dignity, which the court has at times used to combat discrimination against minorities.
Thousands of Israeli right-wing protesters rally in support of Israeli government’s judicial overhaul bills out of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on March 27, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
Entman repeated the claim that the court had used the law to prevent the expulsion of African asylum seekers despite complaints from Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv. In fact, the court only limited the government’s ability to lock up asylum seekers in a Negev facility. It was Netanyahu who brokered a third-country expulsion agreement only to backtrack on it the next day.
Entman’s wife said bitterly that the court had “expelled settlers,” an apparent reference to court-ordered evacuation of Jewish settlers trespassing on private Palestinian property.
The massive demonstrations from right and left marked the culmination of a dramatic day in Israeli history, following Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Galant after Galant urged a delay on the divisive judicial reform legislation, citing concerns about national security. The firing triggered an outpouring of public rage and ultimately led Netanyahu, for the first time since retaking office in December, to offer a compromise, promising to suspend legislation for several months and enter talks with opposition leaders.
The larger demonstrations were by critics of the government. But pro-reform organizers said more than 100,000 people attended demonstrations Monday across the country. In Jerusalem, more than a dozen cabinet ministers and Knesset members from coalition parties attended the rally, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the head of the far-right Jewish Power party, and Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party. The men were reportedly among the last holdouts opposing the legislative pause, and each addressed the crowd.
The pro-government protests drew members of La Familia, a famously racist group of fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, alongside other right-wing activists. After the protest ended, several demonstrators made their way to Jerusalem’s Sacher Park where they clashed with police forces. In another incident in Jerusalem, protesters identifying as supporters of the judicial reform attacked an Arab taxi driver, injuring him and damaging his car.
A theme of the pro-government protest was that efforts to oppose the judicial reform legislation represent a form of election denial, a critique that government lawmakers had advanced, citing their majority after last November’s election. One man wore an Israeli flag as a cape and held up a sign that read, ”They are stealing the election.”
Yehiel Zadok, an 18-year-old from the Har Bracha settlement, who voted for Netanyahu’s Likud party, said, “The left lost the election and it’s time [for them] to admit it.” He argued that the battle over Supreme Court appointments is no more than an effort by the left to deny the right its ability to rule the country.
Zadok, who said he plans to study in a yeshiva before joining a military combat unit, offered a long list of grievances against the Supreme Court. “It harms settlement, ties the hands of the army and takes power that doesn’t belong to it.”
Israeli minister of national Security Itamar Ben-Gvir attends a rally of right-wing Israelis supporting the government’s planned judicial overhaul, in Jerusalem on March 27, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
And while Zadok expressed support for Netanyahu’s decision to suspend the legislative drive and to enable dialogue, he warned that if the prime minister drops the plan altogether, he, for one, will abandon Likud in the next election and vote for Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party.
“Netanyahu needs to know that he is indebted to a huge number of people who voted for him and the reform,” said Zadok.
His friend, Yaakov Klein, who is also 18, said he was there not only to show support for the proposed judicial overhaul, but also for a greater cause.
“This is not just about the reform,” said Klein. “It is about control of the country, about whether the right can rule.” Like many other supporters of Netanyahu’s government, he feels sidelined in a society which, he claims, is dominated by the left.
“The left held on to centers of power like the army and the Histadrut,” he said, referring to Israel’s largest labor union, which joined a call for a general strike to protest the government on Monday. “Something has been exposed by the left’s protests: that when you take a little bit of cheese away from them, they burn down everything.
“The media,” Klein added, ”isn’t presenting the truth. It doesn’t show the other side.”
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US Condemns South Africa’s Expulsion of Israeli Diplomat
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the 20th East Asia Summit (EAS), as part of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hasnoor Hussain
The United States on Tuesday condemned South Africa’s decision to expel Israel’s top diplomat last week, a State Department spokesperson said, calling the African nation’s step a part of prioritizing “grievance politics.”
“Expelling a diplomat for calling out the African National Congress party’s ties to Hamas and other antisemitic radicals prioritizes grievance politics over the good of South Africa and its citizens,” Tommy Pigott, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson, said on X.
South Africa’s embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
On Friday, South Africa declared the top diplomat at Israel’s embassy persona non grata and ordered him out within 72 hours.
It accused him of “unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice,” including insulting South Africa’s president.
Israel responded by expelling South Africa’s senior diplomatic representative to its country.
Relations between the countries have been strained since South Africa brought a genocide case over Israel’s defensive military campaign against Hamas in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. Israel has rejected the case as baseless, calling it an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention and noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.
The genocide case has also contributed to US President Donald Trump’s attacks on Pretoria, including verbal scolding, trade sanctions, and an executive order last year cutting all US funding.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the South African government has been one of Israel’s fiercest critics, actively confronting the Jewish state on the international stage.
Beyond its open hostility toward Israel, South Africa has actively supported Hamas, hosting officials from the Palestinian terrorist group and expressing solidarity with their “cause.”
In one instance, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led a crowd at an election rally in a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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Russia Says Uranium Proposal for Iran Is Still on the Table
Spokeswoman of Russia’s Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova attends the annual press conference held by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
Russia‘s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that a proposal to remove uranium from Iran as part of a deal to ease US concerns was still on the table, but that it was for Tehran to decide whether or not to remove it.
“Russia once offered to export Iran‘s enriched uranium reserves to its territory. This initiative is still on the table,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“Only Iranians have the right to dispose of them, including deciding whether to export them outside the territory of Iran and, in case of a positive decision, where to export them to or not,” she said.
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US, Iran to Seek De-Escalation in Nuclear Talks in Oman, Regional Official Says
USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, Sept. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The US and Iran are due to hold talks in Oman on Friday after Tehran requested a change of venue to limit negotiations to its nuclear program, a regional official said, with a build-up of US forces in the Middle East raising fears of a confrontation.
Iran wanted the meeting to take place in Oman as a continuation of previous rounds of talks held in the Gulf Arab country on its nuclear program, asking for a change of location from Turkey to avoid any expansion of the discussions to issues such as Tehran’s ballistic missiles, the regional official said.
Iran has said it will not make concessions on its formidable ballistic missile program — one of the biggest in the Middle East — calling that a red line in negotiations.
Tehran, which says it replenished its stockpile of ballistic missiles since coming under attack from Israel last year, has warned that it will unleash its missiles to defend the Islamic Republic if its security is under threat.
The regional official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran had since the beginning stressed that it would only discuss its nuclear program, while Washington wanted other issues on the agenda.
Oil prices extended gains on Wednesday after the US shot down an Iranian drone and armed Iranian boats approached a US-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, rekindling fears of an escalation between Washington and Tehran.
IRAN SOUGHT BILATERAL TALKS
Trump has warned that “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic in a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes and stirred fears of a wider war.
On Tuesday, the US military shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively” approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, the US military said, in an incident first reported by Reuters.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday: “We are negotiating with them right now.” He did not elaborate and declined to say where he expected talks to take place.
A source familiar with the situation said Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was due to take part in the talks, along with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
Ministers from several other countries in the region including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates had also been expected to attend, but the regional source told Reuters that Tehran wanted only bilateral talks with the US.
In June, the United States struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in at the close of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign.
More recently, the US navy built up forces in the region following Iran‘s violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrations last month, the deadliest since Iran‘s 1979 revolution.
Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene, has since demanded nuclear concessions from Iran, sending a flotilla to its coast.
Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried a US strike could break its grip on power by driving an already enraged public back onto the streets, according to six current and former Iranian officials.
The priority of the diplomatic effort is to avoid conflict and de-escalate tension, a regional official told Reuters earlier.
TANKER INCIDENT
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Trump had demanded three conditions for the resumption of talks: zero enrichment of uranium in Iran, limits on Tehran’s ballistic missile program, and an end to its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long said all three demands are unacceptable infringements of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its clerical rulers saw the ballistic missile program, rather than uranium enrichment, as the bigger obstacle.
Since the US strikes in June, Tehran has said its uranium enrichment work – which it says is for peaceful, not military purposes – has stopped.
In another incident on Tuesday, this one in the Strait of Hormuz, the US Central Command said Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces had approached a US-flagged tanker at speed and threatened to board and seize it.
Maritime risk management group Vanguard said the Iranian boats ordered the tanker to stop its engine and prepare to be boarded. Instead, the tanker sped up and continued its voyage.