"Crime minister:" Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership is questioned even as Israelis rally round the flag

The murderous attacks launched by Hamas on October 7, which triggered the Israel-Hamas 2023 war, have had a unifying effect on Israeli society. The social divisions that marked the confrontations over the judicial overhaul have given way to a rare moment of social unity and rallying around the flag.

Each week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis -tech workers, lawyers, teachers, professionals, as well as members of the security services- demonstrated after Netanyahu’s government passed into law in July 2023 the first planned change of the overhaul – a so-called “reasonableness” bill. This removed the power of the country’s supreme court (and lower courts) to cancel government decisions deemed “extremely unreasonable”.

Yet rather than seeking a political compromise, his strategy was to sow political and social division. The pro-democracy campaigners, in turn, have referred to Netanyahu as the “crime minister”. This aims to highlight that the prime minister’s newfound impetus to weaken Israel’s judiciary arose after he became embroiled in a criminal trial. He faces multiple corruption charges: bribery, fraud and breach of trust, stemming from three separate cases.