Archiv: second Democracy Movement in Israel against Netanyahu Government coup 2023 – until October 7th.. / Demokratiebewegung in Israel gegen Staatsstreich der Netanyahu-Regierung – bis zum 7. Oktober..


16.05.2025 - 23:29 [ DiEM25 / Youtube ]

Ofer Cassif, the Knesset Member Opposing the Genocide, in Conversation with Yanis Varoufakis

(streamed 5 hours ago)

Ofer Cassif, Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel and MK with Hadash-Ta‘al, is the only Israeli Jewish MK campaigning out against the genocide in Gaza.

While his colleagues go along with Netanyahu’s lie that it is all about Israel’s right to defend itself, Cassif has called it what it is: Genocide practised by the last Apartheid State — and demanded it stop. For doing so, he was suspended from the Knesset for six months. Back from his suspension this Wednesday, he is back in the Knesset – fighting for decency.

In this livestream, Ofer joins Yanis for a rare, unfiltered conversation.

24.03.2025 - 12:32 [ New York Times ]

With No-Confidence Vote, Israeli Cabinet Moves to Fire Attorney General

Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have accused the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, of undermining them. The no-confidence vote against her, as well as the cabinet’s approval days before of the firing of Israel’s domestic intelligence chief, has rekindled street protests reminiscent of the upheaval over government plans to overhaul the judiciary before the war with Hamas began in 2023.

22.03.2025 - 12:00 [ Jerusalem Post ]

Histadrut coordinated nationwide strike with PM‘s office – coalition member

(March 30, 2023)

The strike on Monday of Israel‘s largest worker‘s union, the Histadrut Labor Federation, was coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s inner circle, a senior member of the coalition confirmed on Thursday.

According to the report, one of Netanyahu‘s spokespersons, Yonatan Urich, contacted senior Histadrut officials on Monday morning urging them to launch a strike, in order to give the prime minister a decisive reason to announce that he was postponing the legislation, against the wishes of Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

27.02.2025 - 21:42 [ +972 Magazine ]

In its fight against fascism, Israeli academia remains blind to a basic truth

After leading the protest movement against the government’s planned judicial overhaul at the beginning of 2023, Israeli academia quickly fell into line after October 7. From militant speeches and op-eds defending a “just war” to the mass enlistment of Israeli students in the reserve service, the academy broadly supported the war in its first months.

What my academic colleagues fail to grasp, but what my activist friends understand clearly, is that the Israeli government’s ongoing assault on democratic norms and institutions cannot be separated from its genocidal oppression of the Palestinian people. They make up the two lobes of the same right-wing brain.

27.02.2025 - 20:48 [ Times of Israel ]

Faced with impeachment, far-left lawmaker slams attempts to silence him

(February 23, 2025)

And by the way, that [in no way] means that there is any justification for the war crimes and crimes against humanity of October 7 whatsoever. Not even the ongoing occupation and persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people. What happened on October 7 must be rejected 100%.

The second thing is that the Palestinian people didn’t launch a war against Israel. Those who are guilty of the crimes of October 7 are Hamas and some other elements of course. That’s not the Palestinian people. The Israelis, in general, are innocents, and the Palestinians, in general are innocents. There are those who are guilty of war crimes here and there and everywhere. In my view, [they] should be caught and brought to justice in The Hague.

The Times of Israel: Does that include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant?

Ofer Cassif: Yes.

27.02.2025 - 20:46 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

MK Cassif: There’s a Fascist Atmosphere in Israel

(February 24, 2025)

“There are attempts to silence us and to pursue and to create an atmosphere of chilling effect to terrorize us. There are attempts, again, to silence us, to prevent us from raising our political voice. We were not elected to represent those who disagree with us. It’s our right and obligation to represent as firmly as possible our values for which we were elected. Since October 7, people have been arrested because of tweets [in which] they simply expressed sympathy for the children of Gaza, not for Hamas, perish the thought…There’s a fascist atmosphere,” Cassif said to The Times of Israel. Above excerpts from the interview.

25.02.2025 - 21:31 [ New York Times ]

Hamas Official Expresses Reservations About Oct. 7 Attack on Israel

(February 24, 2025)

Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, said he would not have supported such an attack on Israel had he known of the devastation it would wreak on Gaza.

15.02.2025 - 15:44 [ Morning Star (UK) ]

The US war against the Palestinians, and the struggle to oppose it

WHAT is your view on Trump’s pronouncements on Gaza? How do these reflect on the US’s relationship with Israel and its role in the Middle East?

These declarations by Trump show a barbaric mentality; bringing to the Gaza issue a “cowboy” attitude from the American experience: removing the native people because the white man has decided it.

We need to be clear that this has not really been a war against Hamas for reasons of security but a strategic war, planned in advance, with the goal of displacing and erasing the Palestinian population.

15.02.2025 - 15:43 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

The US War Against the Palestinians, and the Struggle to Oppose It

A leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, former member of the Knesset and currently president of Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), talks to the Morning Star, British Socialist newspaper. The interview was published Wednesday, February 12, 2025.

11.02.2025 - 17:52 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

‘Netanyahu, You Need a Revolt’: An Interview with Tamar Gozansky

Recently Haaretz’s weekend edition published a long interview, seven pages in the Hebrew version, with the veteran Communist Party of Israel leading member Tamar Gozansky, a former Hadash MK. She entered the Knesset in July 1990 as a replacement for veteran Hadash MK Tawfik Toubi and retained her seat in the 1992 elections, after which she chaired the Knesset’s joint committee on early childhood. She was reelected in 1996 and again chaired the joint committee on early childhood. Following a third re-election in 1999 she became chairwoman of the committee on the rights of the child and the special committee for school dropout rates.

26.01.2025 - 15:59 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

‘Continue the Deal and Stop the War’, Protests All-Over Israel

Protests calling for a hostage deal, against Netanyahu’s government and for the end of the war, took place on Saturday evening, Jan 25, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Beer Sheva, Raanana, Ramat Hasharon, Herzliya, Carmiel, Petach Tikva, Nahariya, Umm el-Fahm and dozens of other locations across the country.

During the protests, activists and relatives of hostages hailing the week-old ceasefire that has so far seen the release of seven female hostages and urging the government to keep the ceasefire going through its second phase.

(…)

“End this fucking war”, protesters again the war in Gaza at Hemed Junction near Jerusalem, January 25, 2025 (Photo: Black Flag Movement)

11.01.2025 - 12:28 [ Times of Israel ]

No more ‘cannon fodder’: Parents of troops, slain hostages demand Gaza deal

“The IDF has no reason to stay in Gaza, besides fulfilling messianic wishes of settling there,” the letter alleged, pushing back against Netanyahu’s stance that continued military action would free the 98 hostages believed to remain in Gaza, almost all of them kidnapped on October 7.

They charged the fighting in Gaza was “a war without a horizon, unlike anything in our history, solely in the interest of your own political survival.”

11.01.2025 - 12:26 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

850 Parents of Soldiers Accuse Netanyahu: Our Children are Cannon Fodder

n a letter addressed to the premier, the relatives accuse him of leading “a war without a horizon, unlike anything in our history, solely in the interest of your own political survival.” “Our sons and daughters set out on a necessary war brought upon us by your actions. Our children are cannon fodder”, they claim. “They lost many friends and are continuing to die and get injured, mentally and physically.

Now, after more than a year of war, they assert the only way for the returning of the hostages is as part of a deal with Hamas, alleging that the war is being extended aimlessly and that the Israeli army “has no reason to stay in Gaza, besides fulfilling messianic wishes of settling there.” “We accuse you of abandoning the hostages and the soldiers,” the parents write, threatening to launch an “all-out struggle,” beginning in dozens of cities next Saturday.

03.12.2024 - 04:06 [ Ofer Cassif / Guardian ]

I was suspended from Israel’s Knesset for highlighting the tyranny of Netanyahu. Help us to oppose him

(November 29, 2024)

I am not alone in opposing his tyranny. The consistent political opposition inside Israel itself, made up of democratic Jews and Arab citizens, finds the notion of democracy in Israel under Netanyahu absurd too. Democracy in Israel never really existed, owing to the state of Israel’s definition as an ethnic concept, antithetical to political egalitarianism.

A state that under its basic laws declares one group politically superior to the other cannot be regarded as a democracy, but as an ethnocracy. Since its formation, Israel has been pursuing discriminatory policies towards its own Palestinian citizens in all spheres of life – housing, employment, welfare and education. Even the supposed Israeli bill of rights, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, doesn’t dare to mention the right to equality.

03.09.2024 - 18:21 [ Haaretz ]

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Vile Messiah Leading a Cult of Lies and Death

Despite presiding over numerous failures – including Iran, the economy, the cost of living and October 7 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still worshipped by over a quarter of Israelis. The gap between his failings and his support has all the attributes of a cult

08.05.2024 - 22:02 [ Jerusalem Post ]

Histadrut coordinated nationwide strike with PM‘s office – coalition member

(March 30, 2023)

The strike on Monday of Israel‘s largest worker‘s union, the Histadrut Labor Federation, was coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s inner circle, a senior member of the coalition confirmed on Thursday.

08.04.2024 - 19:26 [ Communist Party of Israel ]

Car Rams Protesters Injuring Five, as 100,000 in Tel Aviv Demand Elections Now

(April 7, 2024)

The demonstration, held on the eve of the six-month mark of the war in Gaza, drew tens of thousands, with organizers claiming some 100,000 people were in attendance. Thousands more joined the call for early elections and a deal to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza in smaller protests in other cities including Jerusalem, Haifa, Beer Sheva and Caesarea. Furthermore, there were demonstrations in over 50 additional locations across the country among them Kfar Sava, Karkur, Eilat, Kyriat Gar and Sha’ar Hanegev. The Israeli media define the demonstration as “the largest since October 7th.”

08.04.2024 - 19:15 [ Times of Israel ]

Netanyahu’s judicial ‘reform’ threatens to bulldoze the Declaration of Independence

(21 February 2023)

Our Declaration of Independence promises that the State of Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”

As of today, those foundational commitments and guarantees are under direct and tangible threat, from the very government charged with upholding them.

31.03.2024 - 19:58 [ Times of Israel ]

Protesters begin to assemble in Jerusalem for four-day demonstration against government

(´Today, 6:32 pm)

The organizers of the protest are calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to resign, for Israel to hold early elections, and for the country’s leaders to agree to a hostage deal that will bring about the release of the 130 captives held in Gaza since October 7.

Protests will be centered around the Knesset but will also be held in other key locations, including close to Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence.

31.03.2024 - 19:49 [ Times of Israel ]

Saturday night anti-overhaul protests canceled; Brothers in Arms urges all who are needed to report for duty

7 October 2023, 9:02 am

Organizers of protests against the judicial overhaul scheduled for Saturday night announce the cancellation of the weekly demonstrations.

“We stand with the residents of Israel and give full support to the IDF and the security forces,” the protest organizers say in a statement.

02.01.2024 - 19:50 [ Tagesschau,de ]

Israels Justizreform gekippt: Der Krieg überlagert den Streit über das historische Urteil

„Die Frage ist, ob dieses Urteil ein Scheitern ist oder der Beweis dafür, dass das System reformiert werden muss“, sagt er. „Dass die Notwendigkeit noch größer ist als bisher angenommen. Wir werden uns aus einem einfachen Grund jetzt nicht damit beschäftigen: Der Feind steht vor unseren Toren. Wer sich jetzt mit der Frage beschäftigt, hat den Bezug zur Realität verloren.“

02.01.2024 - 19:40 [ Washington Post ]

Israel’s high court strikes down Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul law

(01.01.2023)

Monday’s ruling comes at a sensitive moment for Netanyahu, who remains embroiled in a corruption trial and is facing calls for his resignation over his government’s failure to thwart the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas, as well as its handling of the hostage crisis.

01.01.2024 - 19:46 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Israel: Oberstes Gericht kippt Kernelement von Justizreform

Die von der Regierung seit ihrer Vereidigung vor einem Jahr massiv vorangetriebene Justizreform hatte die israelische Gesellschaft tief gespalten. Über Monate gingen immer wieder Hunderttausende von Menschen auf die Straße, um dagegen zu protestieren – sie sahen im Vorgehen der Regierung eine Gefahr für Israels Demokratie.

Netanyahus Regierung argumentierte dagegen, das Gericht sei in Israel zu mächtig, man wolle lediglich ein Gleichgewicht wiederherstellen.

01.01.2024 - 18:28 [ i24news.tv ]

Israel: High Court strikes down law repealing the ‚reasonableness standard,‘ a key plank of the govt‘s judicial reform

The reasonableness law, an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary, prohibits courts, including the High Court, from reviewing government and ministerial decisions using the „reasonableness“ standard. This standard permits the court to annul decisions based on substantive issues with the considerations behind them.

It was passed last year amid furious protests that saw hundreds of thousands Israelis take to rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere across Israel.

29.12.2023 - 04:55 [ New York Magazine ]

What Israel Lost Before October 7 – The worst year in the country’s history began with Netanyahu’s return to power.

Owing to the massive demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets, Netanyahu succeeded in passing only one law, aimed at neutering the highest court’s powers of judicial review. After a delay caused by the war, Israel’s supreme court is scheduled to hear petitions against this law in January. The protests “saved Israel,” Peled Nakash said. “We were the nation’s safety net.”

A lieutenant commander in the naval reserves, Peled Nakash was one of hundreds of senior officers who announced they would refuse to serve if Israel ceased to be a democracy — all of whom reported for duty when called after October 7. Her group, Brothers and Sisters in Arms, vociferously denounced Netanyahu for risking Israeli security by dividing society so deeply.

28.12.2023 - 16:52 [ Times of Israel ]

Bombshell leaked draft ruling shows High Court set to nix key judicial overhaul law

The report drew immediate, heated reactions, with coalition members chastising the expected decision and casting it as undermining the national unity being displayed during the ongoing war against Hamas. The group that petitioned for the law to be nullified claimed the leak was an attempt to intimidate the justices and push them to change their ruling and not void the legislation.

22.12.2023 - 22:42 [ Tali / Twitter ]

Histadrut Chairman Arnon Bar-David as photographed last week during a visit to two weapons factories: #Elbit Systems and IAI. On a shell intended for use in bombings in the Gaza Strip he wrote: „The people of Israel live. Greetings from the Histadrut and the workers in Israel

10.12.2023 - 17:12 [ @LBC / Twitter ]

‚He completely failed to protect Israelis… but he still remains the most powerful man in the country.‘ Journalist @NTarnopolsky tells @RachelSJohnson that while there‘s a general sense Benjamin Netanyahu ‚is done for‘, the Israeli PM still ‚doesn‘t think he‘s going anywhere.‘

09.12.2023 - 23:36 [ Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي / Twitter ]

Protesters call for Netanyahu‘s resignation in Tel Aviv

12.11.2023 - 20:45 [ Times of Israel ]

‘A nightmare, we’re not living’: Tens of thousands rally for hostages’ return

Saturday night was the largest protest in Tel Aviv since regular rallies against the government’s judicial overhaul legislation stopped abruptly — alongside the overhaul’s freezing — on October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented assault on the communities of southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians massacred amid brutal atrocities, and kidnapping at least 244 people, of whom one has since been rescued by Israeli forces and four have been set free by Hamas.

07.11.2023 - 18:26 [ Doug Lang / Twitter ]

Just before the October 7th event, Israelis were filling the streets in protest against Netanyahu, almost to the point of forming a coup against him. His political career was coming to an end. And then? ‚Hamas‘, his lifeboat, his ticket to slaughter Palestinians. What timing.

(October 28, 2023)

07.11.2023 - 17:19 [ Roberto / Twitter ]

Protesters in #Israel rush to Netanyahu‘s palace. Broke through 2 checkpoints. The main demand: resignation of PM. It seems the operation against Hamas was a reason for Netanyahu & his team to distract the attention. Remember the protests over judicial reform? It only got worse

06.11.2023 - 20:55 [ Times of Israel ]

Opposition slams Netanyahu for reportedly casting blame for Oct. 7 on IDF reservists

Yisrael Beytenu party head Avigdor Liberman and Labor chief Merav Michaeli went further in their criticism, calling on Netanyahu to resign.

07.10.2023 - 17:22 [ Yossi Melman / Twitter ]

Israel declared massive reserves recruitment. The protest movement announced that they cancelled all demonstrations tonight. Reserve Air force pilots and personnels said that they are ready for duty

07.10.2023 - 14:30 [ Friedelkorn / Twitter ]

In Israel, there have been 100,000s demonstrating agaist the gouvernment for months. In Gaza, a mob is cheering as dead bodies of a man and a woman are paraded around the streets. When did they protest against Hamas?

04.10.2023 - 07:54 [ Times of Israel ]

Hanegbi sits with protesters in front of his home who urge him to obey High Court

The Tuesday night protest in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion was made up largely of former defense officials, including senior members of the National Security Council, which Hanegbi now leads.

While protests outside the homes of lawmakers have become the norm over the past year, the decision to target Hanegbi, who is no longer a politician appeared relatively rare — as was his willingness to sit with those demonstrating against him.

30.09.2023 - 20:06 [ Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي / Twitter ]

#Breaking: Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of German Jews, tells Web.de-News that Israeli democracy is in danger and that he hopes for new elections soon. @ZentralratJuden

30.09.2023 - 19:43 [ Times of Israel ]

Tens of thousands take part in 39th week of anti-overhaul demonstrations

Organizers said that this week’s protests would highlight the fractious and destructive nature of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule.

“He is an expert in dividing and splitting people on sectarian lines, religious vs. secular, left against right — divide and conquer,” the organizers said in a statement ahead of the protests. “The economy is collapsing and all we get is provocations and the continued dismantling of democracy.”