"Bibi" has not been able to complete his overhaul of his country's institutions, but he has managed to rally Israelis from all walks of life against him in a wave of historic protest.

The spark: the announcement of a judicial reform deemed anti-democratic, on January 4. Since then, thousands of Israelis have gathered every week to demand its withdrawal.

The largest demonstrations brought together up to 300,000 demonstrators, in several cities of the country, Tel Aviv in the first place.

"A societal rainbow," said Dominique Vidal, a historian, journalist and specialist in Israeli issues. The protest movement extends from the Israeli left to the army, judges and other liberal professions.

Some of these demonstrators also reject the government formed in December by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is one of the most right-wing – the most right-wing according to observers – that Israel has known in its history.

Waving the spectre of a "civil war", Benjamin Netanyahu announced, on March 27, a "pause" in the implementation of judicial reform, to give a "chance (...) to dialogue".

Words deemed insufficient for the demonstrators, who do not take off. On April 22, in Tel Aviv, there were tens of thousands, according to estimates, in the streets of Israel.

The Supreme Court, this safeguard

"It is too early to predict the duration of this break," said Dominique Vidal. "It remains clear that Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies intend to carry out their project."

For the government, the text of the reform aims to rebalance powers by reducing the prerogatives of the Supreme Court, which the executive considers politicized, to the benefit of Parliament.

But cutting back on the prerogatives of the Supreme Court would weaken the only counter-power in this country that has no Constitution, but only a few major reference laws.

"Extremely serious," adds Dominique Vidal: "It would be as if in France, the government became free to promulgate laws by ignoring the censorship of the Constitutional Council." And also arrogated to itself the right to appoint its members. According to the draft, "the executive would also have control over the appointment of Supreme Court judges." The separation of powers thus abolished, Israel "would no longer be governed by a democratic system," the historian continues.

This institutional earthquake would be amplified by a new situation: the government formed by Benjamin Netanyahu includes a number of ultra-religious, such as the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, or the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.

Freed from the veto of the "wise men" of the Supreme Court, such ultra-conservative figures, key members of the coalition, could subjugate Israeli legislation to a more fundamental law: Halacha, derived from the Bible. A bleak scenario for women's rights, and those of minorities, such as Arabs or homosexuals.

Summer 2018, the illiberal turn?

The Jewish dimension of Israel would then swallow up its democratic nature. But this course was decided several years ago, says Dominique Vidal. On July 19, 2018, Israeli lawmakers approved a controversial bill, which recognizes the right to self-determination only for the Jewish people.

"Understand: the Jewish people ... and therefore not the other," comments the historian. In these articles, the word "democratic" is conspicuous by its absence, he continues. "Since 2018, Israel is no longer a state that is both Jewish and democratic, according to its own definition."

The text also removes the official status of the Arabic language alongside Hebrew.

It has a "purely symbolic dimension," says Fabrice Balanche, lecturer in geography at the University of Lyon 2, author of many books on the Middle East. On the ground, he continues, "this law has led neither to their marginalization nor to a deprivation of their rights".

Coming from the Palestinian populations who were able to remain on the territory of Israel at birth, the Israeli Arabs, a minority of about 10% of the population in 1948, now represent 20%. They still maintain a birth rate exceeding the average number of children per Jewish woman.

"Apart from a few areas, the reality of Israeli territory is mixed, Jewish-Arab," adds the geographer. "The 2018 law therefore appears as a reaffirmation of Israel as a Jewish state," despite the Arab component of its society.

2021: Intercommunal violence, Jewish trauma

In May 2021, the rift separating this Arab minority from the rest of Israel opened up in violence. Mixed towns were the scene of clashes between Jews and Arabs of Israeli nationality, making the authorities fear a civil war.

At the root of this inter-Israeli violence is an escalation between Israel and the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The episode is a trauma for the Jewish population of a city like Haifa, where the two communities have lived together for decades: "The Israeli Arab population, which was thought to be integrated, assimilated, now appears as a potential substratum of terrorism. This is one of the parameters of the judicial reform carried out by the government. This jihadist risk thrives, sheltered from the rule of law, whereas it would take exceptional laws to overcome it," comments Fabrice Balanche.

The fear born of these inter-communal clashes is undeniably one of the drivers of the breakthrough of the right in November 2022, adds Dominique Vidal.

Ultra-Orthodox demography, right-wing politics

Geographer Fabrice Balanche highlights a second demographic dynamic: "With an average of eight children per woman in the most religious Jewish circles, and three among secularists, there is a rise in power of religious within society, which is then reflected in the Knesset."

This religious boom is set to strengthen, adds Dominique Vidal. Because if observers note the decline in aliyah - emigration of Jews to Israel - they forget the opposite movement, theyerida.

Applications for European passports have increased by 45% in one year, and their number has exploded since the shift to the right in November, says the historian and expert on Israel.

Those who leave for European countries are mostly Ashkenazi Jews, and rather secular, says Dominique Vidal. Calculating the exponential effect of the birth rate, according to some estimates, the population will include 30% ultra-Orthodox, at the turn of the 2030s. By their choices, the Israeli political elites are playing with the fate of the Jewish state, sighs Dominique Vidal.

Daily life in Israel, for a secular Jew, "has become unbearable," said the journalist, who has been covering Israel for fifty years. "A woman cannot divorce in Israel without her husband's consent," he added, before concluding: "The purpose is not to compare this Israel to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but to say that politics tends in this direction."

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