By Patrick Kingsley

JERUSALEM — Civil unrest broke out in parts of Israel on Sunday (26) night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defence minister for criticizing the government’s divisive judicial overhaul, prompting protesters to surge into the streets, universities to shut their doors and union leaders to hint of a looming general strike.

Announced in a one-line statement by the prime minister’s office, the dismissal of Yoav Gallant intensified an already dramatic domestic crisis — one of the gravest in Israeli history — set off by the government’s attempt to give itself greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and to limit the court’s authority over Parliament.

Gallant’s dismissal unleashed chaotic late-night demonstrations in and around Tel Aviv, where protesters blocked a multilane highway and set fires in at least two major roads, and in Jerusalem, where crowds broke through police barriers outside Netanyahu’s private residence.

As midnight approached, it also prompted the heads of Israel’s leading research universities to collectively announce that they were closing their classrooms for the immediate future; Israel’s consul-general in New York to resign; and Histadrut, the country’s largest workers’ union, to warn that it may announce a general strike Monday (27) in conjunction with leading businesses.

The crisis over the future of Israel’s judiciary had already spurred weeks of protest, tensions with the administration of US President Joe Biden, and unrest in the military. Now, it has caused a rift in the governing coalition itself, unusual political coordination from senior academics and rare political intervention from trade unionists.

Gallant was fired after he urged Saturday (25) night that the judicial legislation be postponed, warning that it was causing turmoil in the military and was therefore a threat to Israel’s security.

“The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israel Defence Forces,” Gallant said in a televised speech a day before he was dismissed. The schisms, he said, have caused “a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state — I shall not be a party to this.”

His declaration followed a surge in military reservists’ refusing to fulfil their volunteer duty in protest of the judicial overhaul. Military leaders had warned that a decline in reservists, who form a key part of the air force pilot corps, might soon affect the military’s operational capacity.

Netanyahu did not issue a full explanation for his decision to fire Gallant. But briefing Israeli news reporters, his office said that Gallant had not done enough to dissuade reservists from refusing to serve, implying that Gallant had helped stoke the security risks he warned of.

“We must all stand up strongly against refusals,” Netanyahu said later on social media, without giving further details.

Netanyahu’s decision appeared an unmistakable signal that the government intends to proceed with a final vote in Parliament early this week on the first part of its proposed overhaul: a law that would give the government greater control over who sits on the Supreme Court.

The government and its supporters say the change is necessary to make the court more representative of the diversity of Israeli society and to give elected lawmakers primacy over unelected judges.

Critics say the move would give the government too much power over the judiciary, removing one of the few checks on government wrongdoing, and perhaps lead to authoritarian rule.

If Netanyahu’s goal in firing Gallant was to muscle through the judicial changes, presenting his country with a fait accompli and neutralizing the opposition, it may have backfired. As unruly as some of the protests have been to date, none matched the intensity of the ones that materialized spontaneously late Sunday within minutes of the prime minister’s announcement.

“There comes a time in the history of a people or a person or an organization when you have to stand up and be counted,” Daniel Chamovitz​​, president of Ben-Gurion University, one of the colleges that announced it would shut its doors Monday, said in a phone interview. “With what’s happened in Israel over the past three months, and definitely over the past three hours, we decided that the time had come for us to make a stand.”

The protests were so fierce that governing lawmakers, who hours earlier had seemed confident of voting in their changes in the coming days, began to express doubts that they could do so.

“Even though judicial reform is essential, the house is on fire, the rift in the nation is growing and our job is to stop it,” Miki Zohar, a lawmaker from the prime minister’s party, Likud, said in television interview early Monday. “If Netanyahu takes the decision to postpone a decision until after Independence Day” — in late April — Zohar said, “we must all support him. Israel above everything, and our security above all.”

Gallant’s dismissal came at a time of rising military threats for Israel and prompted opposition leaders and military experts to question whether Netanyahu had put politics over security.

Within the Israel Defence Forces, morale was already falling amid disquiet about the move against the court. The political crisis comes against the backdrop of a growing Palestinian insurgency in the occupied West Bank; rising tensions with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia; and fear of an imminent confrontation with Hamas, the Islamic group that controls the Gaza Strip.

Gallant’s firing also heightened friction between Netanyahu and the Biden administration, which has become increasingly vocal about its reservations over the judicial plan.

“We are deeply concerned by today’s developments out of Israel, which further underscore the urgent need for compromise,” Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in an overnight statement. “As the President recently discussed with Prime Minister Netanyahu, democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Gallant, 64, was appointed less than three months ago, fending off competition from a more extreme member of the coalition with far less military experience. His appointment had eased fears in Washington that Netanyahu might appoint a far-right lawmaker to oversee Israel’s powerful military, which receives considerable U.S. aid and technical assistance.

A former naval commando, Gallant had faced calls from former military colleagues to speak out against the judicial overhaul. In recent days, fellow former naval commandos held protests outside his home to put pressure on him to break ranks. And reserve pilots sent him text messages every time one decided to suspend service to protest the court plan.

Responding to his dismissal on social media, Gallant said, “The security of the State of Israel has always been and will always remain the mission of my life.” There was no immediate announcement about his replacement.

His removal prompted consternation among opposition lawmakers and military analysts.

Yossi Yehoshua, a commentator on military affairs for Yediot Ahronot, a major centrist newspaper, said on social media that Gallant’s dismissal at a time of such peril for Israel was “a danger to the security of the state that could cost lives”.

“There is no other way to put it,” Yehoshua said.

Gideon Saar, an opposition lawmaker and former Netanyahu ally, said on social media that the move was “an act of madness”.

“There is no precedent in Israel’s history for a security minister being fired because he warned, as required by his position, of a security danger,” he said. “Netanyahu is determined to drive Israel into the abyss.”

The Israeli consul general in New York, Asaf Zamir, a former opposition lawmaker, resigned in protest of Gallant’s dismissal.

Two moderate allies of Netanyahu announced their support on Sunday for the legislation, squashing rumours that they were about to break ranks. But two other coalition members have backed the call by Gallant to halt the process. If a third follows suit, the government could lose its majority.

If enacted, the law would complete the first step of a plan to limit judicial authority that has provoked broad unease beyond just the military, including among investors, influential American Jews and Israel’s foreign allies.

Military reservists who have spoken out against the overhaul cite a variety of concerns.

Some oppose weakening the judiciary on principle. But reservists say they also fear being given illegal military orders if the Supreme Court lacks the power to scrutinize government activity adequately. And they fear being charged in international courts if the Israeli justice system is perceived as too weak to prosecute soldiers.

Military leaders have privately said they worry that full-time soldiers may also begin to resign. On Sunday, the military chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, ordered all commanders to speak with their subordinates about the need to keep politics out of the military and maintain cohesion, military officials said.

But despite those warnings, coalition lawmakers on the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the body in parliament tasked with preparing the law’s text, used their majority on the committee on Sunday to hurtle through hundreds of objections raised by opposition lawmakers.

At least until the protests broke out overnight, Netanyahu’s government had seemed determined to pass the law this week, before Parliament breaks for a month-long recess.

-New York Times