Over 100 demonstrators gathered alongside a Nobel Prize–winning economist, rabbis, and civic and community leaders in San Francisco on Sunday to oppose reforms to Israel’s judicial system that critics say threaten democracy.
It was the second such protest organized this month in San Francisco by UnXeptable, a grassroots group formed by Israeli expats in the Bay Area who strongly oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing governing coalition.
The Feb. 26 protest came amid ongoing, massive demonstrations across Israel against the policies of the current Netanyahu administration, policies that include plans to overhaul the judicial system that would allow the Knesset to override Supreme Court decisions. Also last week, hundreds gathered at the Israeli Consulate in New York City in a demonstration organized by progressive American Jewish groups.
“This is a moment of crisis,” said Offir Gutelzon, UnXeptable’s founder, in an interview with J. Monday. Gutelzon, an Israeli expat in Palo Alto, argues Israel’s foundational values outlined in its Declaration of Independence are at risk from Netanyahu’s government, which includes far-right ultra-nationalist parties.
Gutelzon called for a “new partnership between Israelis who live abroad and Jewish Americans, who really feel this is a threat to a Jewish and democratic state.”
Holding an umbrella decorated with a map of city public transit, state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco addressed the crowd gathered at Civic Center Plaza across from City Hall. Netanyahu’s embrace of religious Zionist parties has drawn rebukes from LGBTQ groups; among the parties in his coalition is far-right Noam, whose leader, Knesset member Avi Maoz, has said he would like to cancel Jerusalem’s gay pride parade and has remarked that while he has nothing against gay people, he “opposes LGBTQism as an idea.”
Said Wiener on Sunday: “I am here as a Jew. I am here as a gay man. I am here as the grandson of people who fled Eastern Europe, who fled pogroms, and were lucky to be able to come here. I’m here as someone who deeply understands why it is so important for the State of Israel to exist. And I’m here as a supporter of the State of Israel.”
Saying he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a Palestinian state that is “contiguous and viable,” Wiener added that for those who “believe deeply in the State of Israel,” there is “a special responsibility to call out the Israeli government for what it is proposing to do now.”
Some critics of the proposed judicial reforms say Netanyahu could use them to skirt responsibility as he continues to be dogged by corruption charges.
Rabbi Ryan Bauer of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco and Rabbi Ilana Goldhaber-Gordon of Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City also spoke at the protest.
Economist Paul Milgrom, who in 2020 won a Nobel Prize with Robert Wilson for their work on auction theory and who teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, also addressed the crowd. Milgrom was one of 11 Nobel laureates to sign an open letter recently attacking the Netanyahu government for leading Israel down a path that would weaken it economically, they argued, moving the innovative, tech-savvy nation “in the direction of Hungary or Poland.”
“Israel has been very successful at growing new businesses because it’s a secure place for people to invest,” he said. “The courts protect rights, and you don’t just have a dictator or an autocracy that can seize those rights and hand them to their friends.
“We’ve seen what the consequences of that can be,” Milgrom added.