Palestinians to Pay the Price as Netanyahu Pauses Judicial Overhaul While Further Empowering Far Right

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to delay a push to overhaul and weaken Israel’s judiciary until the next parliamentary session. The retreat came after months of unprecedented mass protests and a general strike on Monday that shut down much of Israel. Netanyahu had earlier fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for suggesting a delay to judicial changes. In a concession to his far-right governing allies, Netanyahu has also agreed to establish a new national guard under the control of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultranationalist national security minister who was once convicted of racist incitement against Palestinians and supporting a terrorist group. “He already has an immense amount of power over police forces that regularly inflict violence on Palestinians. Now there is talk of him having this national guard,” journalist Natasha Roth-Rowland, an editor with +972 Magazine, says of Ben-Gvir. We also speak with Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer, who says the public outrage over the judicial plan is due to many Israelis seeing their own rights threatened for the first time. “The rights of Palestinians … have not been upheld by these courts for a very long time,” says Munayyer.