‘Crisis at heart of Israel deeper than crisis in heart of Netanyahu’

The crisis at the heart of Israel is clearly deeper than that in the heart of the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, hinting at ongoing protests across the Occupied Territories against the Netanyahu regime.

“There are reports that doctors have implanted a pacemaker in the heart of the prime minister of the Zionist regime,” Nasser Kan’ani wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

Still, he hastened to add, it is clear that “the crisis at the heart of the Zionist regime is deeper than the crisis in the heart of its prime minister.”

On Saturday, for the 29th consecutive week, hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers again took to the streets in Tel Aviv, West al-Quds, Beersheva, Herzliya and Kfar Saba to protest against the regime’s extremist cabinet, led by Netanyahu.

The protesters, carrying Israeli flags, water bottles and umbrellas against the scorching sun, entered al-Quds and started gathering near the Parliament and the Supreme Court in a last-ditch show of force against a contentious judicial overhaul bill pushed by Netanyahu.

The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, is set to begin voting on the bill on Sunday and Monday.

The protesters had arrived in the holy city after a multi-day march that began in Tel Aviv earlier this week.

“This administration is an extreme one, and hopefully we will take it down as quickly as possible,” said Guy Maidan, who had participated in the march along with his family.

“Many of us will camp here until this vote is canceled,” he added.

Meanwhile, some 10,000 reservists have said they’ll halt their volunteer duty if the bill passes into law.

They called on Netanyahu’s cabinet to “arrive at a broad consensus, strengthen the trust of... the people in the judicial system and maintain its independence.”

The so-called judicial overhaul scheme seeks to take away the Israeli Supreme Court’s power to overrule the decisions made by the regime’s politicians. It is also aimed at giving the Israeli cabinet a greater say in the process of selecting judges to the court.

Its supporters allege that the plan will end decades of overreach by judges, while opponents argue that it will remove necessary checks on the power that is wielded by the politicians.

Critics have also charged Netanyahu, who is on trial on several counts of corruption charges, with trying to use the scheme to quash possible verdicts against him.

ME