Israeli expats from around the Bay Area, joined by some American Jewish supporters, protested outside the Israeli consulate in San Francisco, July 25, 2023, the day after the right-wing Knesset passed the first law in a series of planned laws that will drastically reduce the powers of the country's Supreme Court. (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)
Israeli expats from around the Bay Area, joined by some American Jewish supporters, protested outside the Israeli consulate in San Francisco, July 25, 2023, the day after the right-wing Knesset passed the first law in a series of planned laws that will drastically reduce the powers of the country's Supreme Court. (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)

Expats excoriate judicial overhaul in front of Israeli Consulate in S.F.

By J. Staff | July 25, 2023

The day after Israel’s Knesset passed the first of several bills to implement a highly controversial restructuring of the judicial system, Israeli expats and their American allies protested the changes in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.

Tuesday morning’s protest was the second such demonstration in three days in the Bay Area.

The protest, organized by the Israeli expat pro-democracy group UnXeptable, drew as many as 200 people who chanted “De-mo-kra-tiya!” (“democracy” in Hebrew), listened to speakers and held signs with slogans including “Save Israel from Netanyahu,” “Israel democracy kidnapped by extremists” and “Reform Judaism, not the judiciary.”

Protestors, dressed like women in the patriarchal dystopia of “The Handmaid’s Tale” TV series, participated in the June 25 protest, following the lead of the Israeli feminist group Bonot Alternativa, members of which are known for dressing in "Handmaid's Tale" costumes at protests. (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)
Protestors, dressed like women in the patriarchal dystopia of “The Handmaid’s Tale” TV series, participated in the July 25 protest, following the lead of the Israeli feminist group Bonot Alternativa, members of which are known for dressing in “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes at protests. (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)

One of the speakers was Eduardo Wasser, an Israeli constitutional lawyer who once successfully persuaded his country’s Supreme Court to overturn a government decision on the basis of “reasonableness.” The legislation that the Knesset passed on Monday removed the Supreme Court’s ability to use the “reasonableness” justification to overturn government actions.

“I stand before you today representing the majority of lawyers who oppose the catastrophic legal revolution being pushed by the extreme-led Israeli government in the Knesset recently,” he said before chants of “Busha! Busha! Busha!” (“Shame! Shame! Shame!”) interrupted him.

“If the legal situation in Israel continues and Netanyahu’s judicial coup continues, as suggested by the passage of the reasonableness bill yesterday, the democracy of the State of Israel is heading swiftly downhill,” Wasser told the crowd.

In 2007, Wasser was the lead attorney on a case in which three Israeli regional councils sued the government, alleging that the protection from rocket attacks for Israeli schoolchildren near the Gaza Strip was insufficient — “unreasonably” so.

One protester's sign reads "If it looks like a ducktator, quacks like a ducktator, then it just may Be Be a ducktator." (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)
One protester’s sign reads “If it looks like a ducktator, quacks like a ducktator, then it just may Be Be a ducktator.” (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)

“I stand here as an Israeli citizen,” he said Tuesday, “but more importantly as a father who can say with absolute certainty that there was a high chance that some of my three children and the children of people living [near the Gaza Strip] would not be alive today if it weren’t for the right of the court to revoke government decisions on the basis of lack of reasonability.”

Ewa Gavrielov demonstrates in a Hebrew T-shirt that reads "Savtot lema'an hademokratiyah" — "Grandmothers for Democracy." (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)
Ewa Gavrielov demonstrates in a Hebrew T-shirt that reads “Savtot lema’an hademokratiyah” — “Grandmothers for democracy.” (Photo/Aaron Levy-Wolins)
J. Staff