10 weeks of street protests in Israel have failed to sway Netanyahu's nationalist government. So what might?
CBC
The striking words coming out the mouth of Israeli army reservist Reuven Benkler sound more like those of an enemy combatant than a senior army officer who served his country loyally for more than 25 years.
But Benkler, who retired with the rank of general, says he believes Israel's future is in peril and soft language won't save it.
"We have a prime minister who is totally sick — he has people next to him who are all fascists," said Benkler in reference to members of the new conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Benkler is a combat veteran of the war in Lebanon who, at 65, continues to count himself as a proud member of the country's reserves. He is among a vocal and prominent group of reservists who've challenged the proposed judiciary changes and joined in with the street protests that have consumed Israel's cities and communities over the past 10 weeks.
The latest demonstrations in Tel Aviv Saturday night, which organizers claim drew more than half a million people, are unprecedented and may represent the largest protests the country has ever seen.
"They are stealing the country," Benkler said, referring to sweeping changes proposed to the country's judiciary.
The overhaul, according to opponents, would weaken the country's system of checks and balances and potentially erode the rights of minorities. They would also give the government the ability to override decisions of the Supreme Court that it doesn't agree with through a simple majority vote in Israel's parliament, the Knesset.
"What they are trying to do is create a state which is more or less like Iran, where secular people will not have the ability to live," said Benkler, articulating a widespread fear among protestors that Orthodox religious groups which back the government would move quickly to impose their conservative ideology on the broader population.
Many others fear a creeping authoritarianism in Israel that once started, will be difficult to halt. It was a frequent theme mentioned by people CBC News spoke to at the Tel Aviv protest Saturday.
"I came here from Russia," said protester Dmitri Sherykoff. "I saw how democracy failed, how democracy was lost."
Sherykoff was sporting a rainbow flag and said he was thankful for his freedoms in Israel.
"I make these parallels because [in Russia] we have a government that never, ever hears the people. And in the end, we got what we got," he said in a reference to how Russian President Vladimir Putin suffocated civil society groups and individual freedoms by systematically dismantling the country's independent judicial system and other institutions.
Supporters of the government are just as adamant, however, that the changes are needed to tame judicial overreach and allow the present government to implement the agenda it was elected on.
"This reform is important," said Boaz Bismuth, a member of the Knesset and a former diplomat and prominent journalist. He's with Likud, the largest party in the governing coalition which is chaired by Netanyahu.
