Israel: Massenproteste und Ari Deri verliert Ministerposten

Auch an diesem Wochenende fanden erneut Massenproteste in mehreren israelischen Städten statt. Alleine in Tel Aviv sollen über 110.000 Menschen auf die Straße gegangen sein, um gegen die, von der neuen Regierung geplante Schwächung des Obersten Gerichts zu protestieren.

Diesmal nahmen auch führende Oppositionspolitiker und ehemalige Richter des Obersten Gerichts teil, einer der Redner war der Schriftsteller David Grossmann, der erklärte:

“The State of Israel was established so that there would be one place in the world where the Jewish person, the Jewish people, would feel at home. But if so many Israelis feel like strangers in their own country, obviously something is going wrong,” he said.

“Now is the hour of darkness. Now is the moment to stand up and cry out: This land is in our souls. What happens in it today, will determine what it will be and who we and our children will become,” Grossman said.

“Because if Israel will become different and far from the hope and vision that created it, God forbid, in a certain sense, it will cease to be,”

Zwei Tage zuvor hatte das Oberste Gericht entschieden, dass Schas-Vorsitzender Ari Deri keine Ministerämter inne haben dürfe. Heute musste ihn Netanjahu deshalb entlassen:

The premier fired Deri four days after the High Court issued its bombshell ruling that the decision to appoint the Shas leader as interior and health minister was “unreasonable in the extreme” in light of Deri’s criminal convictions, most recently in January 2022.

Deri struck a plea bargain at that time with the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, which let him quit Knesset before his sentencing and thus avoid a hearing on whether his tax fraud conviction carried moral turpitude — a designation that would have barred him from holding public office for seven years.

The court at the time believed that Deri was retiring from public life. However, he continued to lead Shas from outside the Knesset and was quickly reinstated as a lawmaker in the November 1 election. Deri then demanded that Netanyahu ensure his way back to the cabinet table, despite the Basic Law: The Government requiring the Central Elections Committee to determine whether his crime carried moral turpitude before he could be appointed a minister.