>> photos across israel force benjamin netanyahu to delay controversial changes but he claims he will push ahead with judicial overhaul. what does this mean for his government coalition and for israel? this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. prime minister benjamin netanyahu announced delay his controversial judicial overhaul after major protests

across israel on monday. he said he had taken that step to prevent a rift in the nation. thousands of israelis took to the streets following news netanyahu had fired his defense yoav gallant who had spoken out against his attempts to change the judicial system. >> protests growing by the day. reversal by a prime minister not known for compromise. >> from the will to avoid the rift within the people i decided to suspend the second and third reading from the law in this knesset tenure to give time to get broad consensus to pass the legislation during the next knesset. >> benjamin netanyahu gave way. the country faced growing paralysis with a nationwide strike closing airports, schools, banks, and businesses. tens of thousands filled the streets to voice their

frustrations. >> we are fighting for this attempt to overthrow the judiciary. we will be thrown away from the table. we are asking that benjamin netanyahu resign and take responsibility for what he has done to this country. >> netanyahu's delay came with a price. the minister said his party only agreed to the delay in exchange for the formation of a new national guard under the command of ben-gvir's office. some called for uniting behind netanyahu to halt the judicial overhaul and diffuse the crisis. others dug in saying they would not give in to the tyranny of the minority. the far right governing coalition and supporters say they will not have the vote for

the state stolen from them. >> it is a tremendous mistake to stop the reform. however i can understand because of the heat of the moment and the fighting that is going on, he has to make a calculated decision. but reform is a necessity for this country to continue in a democratic fashion. >> left unresolved, the post of defense minister. it was netanyahu's firing of yoav gallant on sunday that brought the crisis to a head. as of monday evening, yoav gallant had not received a formal dismissal letter. netanyahu has 48 hours to name a successor. nastasya: let's bring in our three guests. from tel aviv we have yaniv segal, the head of the pink

front calling for the resignation of the prime minister. from washington, d.c. we have alissa pavia, associate director of middle east programs at the atlantic council. from west jerusalem, jeremy saltan, israeli political activist and former director for the -- party. we have been watching the situation very closely and there were times on monday where it really felt, middle of the chaos, that netanyahu's political future could be hanging in the balance. i am interested to know because we now see the majority of strike action being called off. he is hanging in there and the coalition is intact. jeremy, how did he do it? jeremy: well we know that netanyahu is the chess grandmaster when it comes to politics. he always seems to find a way out of whatever trouble it might seem he is in. he can move in a way in which on

one side he cannot lose the right flank of his own coalition and on the others be able to say enough and do enough in order to convince enough members of the opposition to listen to president herzog's plea to come and negotiate in the president's residence. once again netanyahu was somehow able to pull another rabbit out of the hat. nastasya: you say do enough for different politicians. i am curious about how it was enough for the protest movement. the judicial overhaul has not been scrapped. it has just been delayed. given the amount of pressure politicians were under, do you think perhaps people who are on the streets could have pushed for more? yaniv: i think that maybe it is the last rabbit that netanyahu has in his hat. it does not work -- all the protest movements are now

declaring that we are not going to stop. we know netanyahu. everyone calls him a liar. we know it too well for the past 20 years of his regime. we are not going to believe it. we know he is trying to make the protest disappear but yesterday and the day before we saw something we have never seen in israel before. what happened yesterday? he is backing up his huge victory for us -- it is not the end of the struggle on the democracy of israel but is a huge victory against someone who seems to be a magician, but has run out of tricks. nastasya: we are seeing overtures from the u.s.. bidens administration has offered a carrot of sorts to netanyahu. he is now a sensibly going to visit the white house in the coming months. it is still unscheduled and this

all after the delay he has now announced. how much suede does washington hold right now? alissa: washington has as always an incredible amount of sway. the u.s. is one of israel's most important allies if not israel's most important ally in the world. president biden has reiterated time and time again to benjamin netanyahu that he will not withstand any overhaul to democratic principles because democracy as president biden has said is a hallmark to u.s.-israel relations. he said that in his private phone call to benjamin netanyahu on march 19. he has reiterated this yesterday when he welcomed netanyahu's proposition to push aside for a few months the judicial overhaul because he did state again that democracies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances.

president biden has made this very clear to benjamin netanyahu. nastasya: pressure building from the u.s. but pressure has been building within israel for many months now. it feels like everything came to a head after all these months of street programs -- street protests. was it the dismissal of yoav gallant that push people over the edge? >> we can look at that as a catalyst but we have to look from the beginning. from the formation of the government. the first meeting of the constitution committee here in jerusalem in the israeli knesset was focused on traditional reform. from the start -- you saw there were protesters taking to the streets. frankly most people were surprised both in the coalition and the opposition in terms of the intensity, the determination and the dedication of the protesters. we are talking about a movement that has been going for close to three months strong.

looking at yesterday's protests which lasted 12 hours, those are things that definitely in terms of public opinion, they make a huge difference. we can look at other aspects throughout the timeline in terms of specific votes, specific timing in terms of when various aspects were advanced, and of course the announcement of the dismissal of the defense minister which has not taken effect which in itself is peculiar. it is just a collection of factors that ended up coming to a head yesterday to the point where frankly it would have been a surprise had benjamin netanyahu not called to put a pause and stop legislation from moving forward. the question became how he could do like i said before hand enough to be able to bring the two large parties of the

opposition, led by opposition leader lupita, and he was able to provide enough to be able to go to the president's residence. on the other side be able to do enough to keep the coalition partners and maintain his coalition moving forward. nastasya: you mentioned how peculiar the case of go land was -- the case of gallant was. he spoke out partly because he felt many reservists, huge numbers of reservists were actually refusing to serve in the military. i know the u.s. was pleased about gallant's appointment. do you have a sense what is next for him in this strange scenario or who might be his replacement? alissa: it is difficult to say. it is important to rewrite that gallant was not opposed to the judicial overhaul but he only opposed it in the second

sentence when he realized what it could do to israel's security. as you rightly pointed out, once he saw the huge amount of reservists that were going to strike and not serve in the idf, he realized how the effects of that could have on israel's security. this is incredibly important also to the united states because we have seen how president biden has called benjamin netanyahu to strengthen support for civil society and the idf. whether or not we will continue seeing -- gallant gone remains to be seen but he was not opposed to the judicial overhaul and then he realized it would become a significant security threat to the country. nastasya: when you start seeing forces within the military turn against the prime minister you understand how widespread the opposition is.

you helped to found the protest movement you are a part of back in 2020. a lot has changed since then. how diverse is the crowd you are seeing in the streets now? yaniv: back then we saw what power we have as citizens in israel and how much we are against corruption in government against -- i cannot say -- jewish fascism we see inside the government. so we can be clear, the true opposition to netanyahu is not the opposition that we see in the knesset. it is in the streets. we are the opposition. nothing that lapid or ganz or anyone else would say can stop the protests. as you saw sunday evening it was a spontaneous demonstration.

like the others with all the past 12 months -- weeks, sorry, that we called, we sent messages, we said in a few days we are going to kaplan. no, i was at home on the couch preparing to have dinner with my boyfriend and people said go out now. the streets were filled with people i have never seen something like that. this is the true power, this is the true opposition to netanyahu because we think that lapid and gantz -- i personally think they are waiting just to jump back to netanyahu's arms. gantz should know better after being tricked by netanyahu in the rotation sometime ago. we are the true opposition to netanyahu. nastasya: you say what happened monday was spontaneous but there have been previous plan protests . a lot of this has been driven by the grassroots but there is a

group calling itself the struggle hq. how is the grassroots movement organizing going forward? yaniv: it is not that organized. there are a lot of organizations. there is the headquarters. we should understand it is people from all the rainbow, the political rainbow of israel. right, left, jewish, religious, secular, all of that together, different groups, everyone together knows the other goals we have for israel need to be postponed to defend the democratic -- israeli democracy. actually we prepared a big demonstration for today but what happened to the past two days to take a small pasta re-think ourselves, but one thing is certain, in all the groups, we are not stopping.

nastasya: right at this moment seems to be the time to take the temperature of public opinion in israel. obviously there is a huge amount of anger, mostly directed at the coalition government. a lot of far-right alternative was to parties. but this is a -- far right ultra nationalist parties. but there has been a lot of discussion of normalization of the far right in politics. i know you do a bit of polling, jeremy. is that what you are seeing? jeremy: if we are looking at the polls from the last 24 hours we see the coalition just as a whole, all the parties across the board taking a hit. we are looking at overall a situation of the coalition which right now has the 64 of 120 seats losing about 10 seats on average, that puts them under the majority. that is a very big hit. i will say the surge in terms of where we see those folks go,

they are going to benny gantz, one of the opposition leaders, the one who said before that he wanted to move forward with talking, dialogue with the coalition. looking at the numbers it seems to be that most israelis i guess like most countries are in the middle and they might not be very happy with the way the coalitions been handling it but they do not seem to be so happy in terms of what the opposition has been doing and they are looking for some other voice. one of the things we have been seeing a lot behind the scenes in private polling is scenario polls. what happens if this personality splits often creates a new party? what happens if the next superstar savior messiah either comes out of retirement or out of a different area and starts a new party? those are the type of things we are seeing right now in polling. nastasya: i want to look at major figures in netanyahu's

coalition. it consists of the likud party, two ultra-orthodox parties and some far right religious factions. the security minister, ben-gvir is a settler and ultranationalist politician. the national missions minister is a member of the far right religious scientism -- religious zionism party, known for her anti-lgbtq views. i'm wondering where this goes within the coalition. the push for the judicial overhaul we saw came from a lot of these people within the coalition. do you think the coalition will hold up over passover? jeremy: yes, if we are looking at the current political struggle. , the knesset is supposed to go into recess after the sunday

session by going ahead and having the opposition parties, the large ones agree to a dialogue with the president's residence that will take him throughout the rest of this week and to the beginning of next week. it will take him again into the recess where the department will be on break and with the parliament on break, the system we have, there is no actual way to topple the government. that sort of gives him time to regroup, rethink, put up a new strategy. and that when he comes back in the month of may, we will have to see what type of netanyahu we see, what the actual plan is in terms of the coalition moving forward and also where the opposition is. did they feel they got what they wanted? or do they feel that netanyahu did not go ahead and provide the goods they were hoping to get from him and of course will probably have a conversation in

terms of what happens at that point? nastasya: it does feel there has already been wheeling and dealing within the coalition. i see there is now a plan to create a national guard under ben-gvir's control. are there concerns especially given his history? alissa: absolutely. ben-gvir is a convicted felon. he was accused by israeli authorities of supporting terrorism. he's known for having a portrait of goldstein in his house, a terrorist who killed 29 palestinians. giving him the power over a national guard is incredibly worrying to many people who see this as a threat to israel's democracy because once you hand over this sort of power to someone like ben-gvir, you really threaten the security within the population and you

threaten the social cohesion within the population because people do not view ben-gvir positively. yesterday we have seen time and time again from netanyahu and from president herzog before then that there is a legitimate fear of an outbreak of violence and civil war. handing over to someone like ben-gvir his own national guard is only going to increase those fears especially amongst the protesters and the population who are scared of a national crackdown onto the protesters. nastasya: you mentioned the phrase civil war. are there broader concerns around security especially given israel's nuclear arsenal? alissa: that is a really good question. the main security -- the main challenge here is really trying to appease all parties involved. especially yesterday we saw how

the general population is strong and vibrant and can take to the streets and bring israel to a complete standstill. during yesterday's protests as well we also saw ben-gvir and netanyahu calling for their loyalists to take to the streets against the protesters. that really evoked fear of a civil war. that is why when benjamin netanyahu went on camera really stressed the importance of avoiding that. nastasya: i could see you want to jump in. are there worries you might see confrontations? yaniv: yes. we saw yesterday, we were attacked by an angry mob. i cannot say any other word. yesterday our activists were

attacked in jerusalem after finishing the demonstration that started in the knesset. finished it near the residency in belle fourche and then we started going back to the train to go to tel aviv to continue. we were attacked aggressively. some people needed medical treatment. what you're are talking about, we see it already. the armed forces for ben-gvir, we don't know, they may or may not -- he may or may not get it but it is a direct threat on us. even though we are treated sometimes aggressively by the police we still trust the police and the army but we do not trust personal forces of ben-gvir because it is a direct threat on our life by our prime minister. and we should say it, ben-gvir

took the symbol of the -- a month before he was assassinated after toxic propaganda by netanyahu in 1994 prior to the assassination of rabin. it is a machine that has worked before and now it is being aimed on us in the streets. we are not going to let it happen. nastasya: i want to pick up on something you said. you use the word trust. a huge amount of how it's going to play out comes down to trust. there have been moves quietly seemingly to put into place procedural measures to make it quicker to vote the judicial overhaul through in parliament in the future. is that being viewed as disingenuous by the protesters? yaniv: we have an emergency of trust.

we don't trust the government, we don't trust our representative in the knesset. we do not trust them, we do not trust the coalition, but we need always to keep one eye open on the opposition because we do not know -- first of all they do not control the situation. they rarely speak at our demonstrations. in tel aviv they never speak. we are the ones moving that forward a mass amount of people. i will just translate to the sentiment we have. we do not trust far right fascist representatives. we do not want them. the majority of israeli people do not want jewish supremacy in israel. we do not believe it. on my shirt you see democracy for all in hebrew, arabic, and english because we still believe even though they try to erase the language from israel, we want democracy for everyone and

we do not want those settlers inside the government. this is what we shout and chant in the streets, that we do not want homophobic, racist, fascists in the knesset and the government. we deserve better this government. we deserve a government that works for us. remember we are in the middle of the middle east in crisis in our neighbors with iran, with different countries area -- different countries. we talk about poland and hungary. we are not in the middle of europe. israel is an island state. i am a gay man. where should i go? to egypt, syria? lebanon? if they close the airport, where should i go, to the sea? we are threatened and we are really afraid but this is what makes us know that we have to go to the streets. we do not have any other option. nastasya: i want to bring

jeremy's and because you are talking very much about the rise of the left is israeli politics and it is obvious now that netanyahu is at the left of his coalition. it seems that he has almost lost his ability to play parties off against each other because he is so far the left of that coalition. jeremy, you were talking earlier about benny gantz. it does seem now he is more popular than netanyahu. despite everything netanyahu has already survived, can he survive this? jeremy: we will find out in may. we have big things happening. one is the first no-confidence motions when we come back from the recess. we have to see what came out from the talks and president's residence, his right-wing coalition as well as the center and left-wing opposition parties , if they are willing to live with it. the second thing is the state budget which comes up at the end of may. if netanyahu fails to pass a

state budget in the final reading by the end of the month, that triggers automatic election within 90 days. two very big landmarks that netanyahu needs to face in may. what are we going to see until then? we are going to be focused in terms of what's happening behind closed doors of the president's residence. the last three months we have had public debate with the knesset constitution committee, many people viewed it as a bit of a circus. it's now going to move to close doors and most israelis are going to hope there is something that comes out of it for netanyahu. nastasya: we will see what emerges from behind those closed doors. we will have to leave it there but thank you to all of our guests. thank you for watching.

you can see this program again any time by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. remember you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is @ajinsidestory. goodbye for now. ■■÷

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