Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu's speech brings hundreds of protesters to the streets
Protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv after Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on April 10, 2023. REUTERS - NIR ELIAS
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The protesters accuse him of implying that the security tension was linked to the protest movement against the judicial reform. He also announced that he had reversed his decision announced in March, but never made effective, to dismiss his Minister of Defence.
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Hundreds of protesters gathered spontaneously in Tel Aviv and several other cities across the country after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised speech on Monday night. It took less than an hour after the end of the speech for Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street to fill up, our Tel Aviv correspondent, Sharon Aronowicz, found.
Binyamin Netanyahu's speech went badly: he did not hesitate to criticize the opposition, implying that the escalation of violence in the Middle East was linked to the protest movement against judicial reform. He claimed that Israel's enemies were taking advantage of the country's political instability to attack — referring in particular to IDF reservists who have threatened to stop serving the country if judicial reform is passed. He also accused the last government of failing to protect Israel and promised that his government would restore calm and security to the country.
For this, he reversed his decision that had caused a scandal in Israel: that of dismissing Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who had called for a pause in the justice reform project. This decision sparked massive and unprecedented protests in Israel, forcing the prime minister to announce a pause in the legislative process for a few weeks, the time of negotiations with the opposition.
While violence between Israelis and Palestinians has risen inexorably since the beginning of the year, after the inauguration of Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of December at the head of one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history, the conflict has taken on a broader dimension in recent days.
Deadly attacks, rocket fire from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, followed by Israeli reprisals: the region has been in the grip of a wave of violence since the brutal eruption, on April 5, in the middle of Ramadan, of Israeli police in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site.
(With AFP)
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