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An aerial view shows protesters holding a sign depicting handmaidens from "The Handmaid's Tale" with the words "Never Surrender" as they demonstrate against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv.
Israel’s judicial reforms: Here we go again
Tens of thousands took to the streets of Israel’s main cities for the 17th consecutive weekend on Saturday to protest government plans to overhaul the judiciary. Meanwhile, smaller crowds rallied in favor of the reforms in Jerusalem ahead of Monday’s opening session of the Knesset (parliament), which will resume its debate over the divisive bill after a two-month pause ordered by PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.
Recap: The judicial reform plan has thrown Israel into unprecedented political turmoil. Bibi and his far-right allies say it’s necessary to curb the power of activist judges, while critics call it a power play that would undermine the rule of law by allowing the government to appoint judges and overturn High Court rulings.
By the end of March, weeks of protests, strikes, and threats by soldiers and reservists to not report for duty forced the PM to head off a constitutional crisis by calling a timeout on the vote until the Knesset was back in session.
Still, not much has changed since then. President Isaac Herzog — who has warned of the potential for this to spark a civil war — is now leading cross-party talks in hopes of reaching a compromise to end the crisis. But whatever happens, the PM is stuck: Bibi can only placate protesters by shelving the reforms, but if he caves he can probably kiss his shaky coalition government goodbye.
Check out earlier on-the-ground coverage of one of the protests in Tel Aviv by GZERO’s Gabrielle Debinski.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a reception at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 21, 2023.
What We're Watching: Russia strikes Ukraine amid dueling wartime trips, Boris Johnson’s ‘Partygate’ showdown, Israeli settlements U-turn
After Xi-Putin summit, Moscow strikes Ukraine
Over the past few days, Vladimir Putin pulled out all the stops to entertain his "good old friend" Xi Jinping in Moscow, during what was perhaps the most geopolitically significant bilateral summit of the year so far.
Seven-course dinner — check. Insanely long red carpet at the Kremlin — check. Putin doing Xi the rare courtesy of showing up on time — check.
But beyond the pomp, ничего особенного (nothing much). The summit ended with a joint press conference featuring boilerplate statements about Sino-Russian cooperation. There was no mention of China potentially supplying arms to Russia, and no call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, although Putin did say that Xi's peace plan could be a first step toward a negotiated settlement “once the West and Kyiv are ready for it."
But then right after Xi's visit on Wednesday, the Kremlin launched fresh drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, killing at least four people in a residential area outside Kyiv.
While President Volodymyr Zelensky has so far tried to remain open to Beijing's intervention, he tweeted that "every time someone tries to hear the word 'peace' in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal strikes."
Is Putin feeling emboldened? From Putin's perspective, a visit from Xi, who’s been something of a homebody himself since the pandemic, lets Putin show that although the US and its allies have blackballed him, he is still far from isolated globally – and that the Russia-China friendship “without limits” is an axis of power Washington has to reckon with.
We're watching to see how — or if — Beijing responds to the latest onslaught that comes on the heels of Xi's whirlwind diplomacy.
Kishida in Kyiv
All things considered, it’s not surprising that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida went to Ukraine to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. Kishida was the only leader of a G7 nation that hadn’t yet made the trip, and Japan is chairing the group’s summit in Hiroshima in May. But it is striking when he chose to visit and where he traveled while there.
Arriving in Kyiv on a day when Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Vladimir Putin in Moscow was striking. Kishida also visited a mass grave in the town of Bucha to pay respects to the Ukrainian victims of alleged Russian war crimes, offering a none-too-subtle comment on Putin’s recent indictment by the International Criminal Court.
Japan’s foreign ministry said the trip underscored Kishida’s "absolute rejection of Russia's one-sided change to the status quo by invasion and force.” It also follows last week's dramatic breakthrough in Japan’s relations with South Korea, another move signaling that, while Japan must continue to carefully balance its relations with China, Kishida will be more assertive and outspoken on foreign policy than most of Japan’s recent prime ministers.
Could this be the end for Boris Johnson?
Boris is back … in the news! On Wednesday, the former British PM will appear before the parliamentary Privileges Committee to determine whether he deliberately lied to parliament over the Partygate saga. Recap: That’s when Downing Street hosted a string of parties (including some attended by the PM) while millions of Britons were subject to strict COVID lockdowns.
What happens now? It’s up to the committee, made up of MPs from three political parties, to decide how to proceed. It could decide that Johnson didn’t mislead parliament, which is unlikely given the trail of evidence. But even if it judges that he did, punishments could vary. Best case scenario? He’s given a wrist slap. Worst case? He’s suspended from parliament.
But wait, there's more! If the suspension is for more than 10 days, it'll trigger a recall vote in Johnson's district, which only requires 10% of ballots to pass. And that in turn will be followed by a by-election for the same seat ... in which Boris can still run!
What does this mean for the Tories? The rank-and-file is divided between diehard Boris fans, who want Johnson to make another bid for the top job, and those who think he’s a political liability. Either way, it’s bad timing for PM Rishi Sunak, who is trying very hard to convince Britons that the wildly unpopular Conservative Party is more than an agent of chaos.
Israeli government’s settlement policy shift
The far-right Israeli government, a magnet for controversy in recent weeks, has just reversed a 2005 law that ordered the dismantling of four settlements in the northern West Bank.
The Israeli army will no longer have the power to forcibly remove settlers from these areas. (In 2005, former PM Ariel Sharon unilaterally disengaged from settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in a move that right-wing ideologues deemed an injustice.)
Tuesday’s move – which the US said it was “extremely troubled” by before the State Department summoned Israel's ambassador to express its dismay – will legalize construction at these outposts, one of which had previously been deemed private Palestinian land by Israel’s High Court. Many right-wing and religious Jews believe that the West Bank is part of greater Israel, according to the Old Testament, and that Jews have a responsibility to settle on the land. Conversely, land seized by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 is deemed occupied Palestinian territory, according to international law.
Critics say the recent government decision will lead to more violence in the West Bank and is a step towards illegal annexation.
This comes after Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich created a firestorm this week by saying “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” while standing in front of a map of so-called greater Israel that included … Jordan. (The Hashemite Kingdom, with which Israel has enjoyed a cold peace since 1994, was not pleased.)
Amid fears that the government’s actions are endangering the Abraham Accords, a senior delegation from the United Arab Emirates is set to meet in Jerusalem with President Isaac Herzog to voice its concerns over recent events.
Thousands gathered at the Place de la Concorde to denounce the government’s use of a constitutional loophole to pass the pension reform, raising the retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly.
What We’re Watching: France’s fiery response, Poland’s first big step, Israeli president’s “civil war” warning
Macron bypasses the legislature on pension reform
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday made the risky call to bypass the National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house, and push through a very unpopular pension reform scheme.
As expected, protesters responded with anger. More than 300 people were arrested overnight, and on Friday morning demonstrators halted production at a fuel refinery and briefly blocked traffic on a highway outside Paris.
(A brief recap on the proposal that’s sent France into a tailspin: Macron’s government wants to incrementally raise the national retirement age by two years to 64 by 2030. Starting from 2027, workers will need to have worked for 43 years, up from 41, to access a full pension.)
Why’s he doing this? Macron has long said that France's public spending, 14% of which goes toward its pension scheme – the highest of any OECD country after Greece and Italy – is crucial to addressing its growing debt-to-GDP ratio. But this approach is very unpopular in France, where retirement is sacred and government interference is abhorred.
Fearing he wouldn’t have the votes in the lower chamber, Macron triggered a constitutional loophole to get the bill through (it had already passed in the upper chamber). But by taking this route – which his political opponents say renders the bill illegitimate, though it is legal – Macron now opens himself up to serious political blowback.
On Friday, a group of opposition centrist lawmakers — backed by the far-left NUPES coalition — filed a no-confidence vote against the government, while far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced she'll table her own. But any vote would need to pass by an absolute majority to topple the government – meaning PM Élisabeth Borne and the cabinet, not the president. Still, that’s very unlikely to happen, analysts say.
But Macron, who cannot run again after 2027 due to term limits, is not out of the woods. Unions have vowed to make the government pay, and prolonged strikes are expected. Meanwhile, far-left and far-right factions say they’ll intensify efforts to topple the French government.
Bibi rejects judicial compromise. What now?
It’s been another dramatic 24 hours in Israel as the country moves closer toward a constitutional crisis over judicial reform. President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, came out with a compromise proposal to placate both the government — pushing to limit the power of the courts — and opposition factions that dub the move a judicial coup. Crucially, Herzog warned that the prospect of “civil war” looms large.
Five (out of six) opposition party leaders now say they support Herzog’s proposal, which they can live with despite not being perfect. But Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who’s increasingly powerless as he tries to appease a discordant far-right coalition, rejected the pitch, calling it “one-sided.”
Meanwhile, anti-government protests continued to sweep Tel Aviv and elsewhere, and scores of army reservists said that they will not show up for training in protest.
As the government moves ahead with its plans, the future looks more and more uncertain. What’ll happen if the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passes a law which then gets struck down by the Supreme Court? Would citizens — and the military — obey the legislature or the courts? When asked what to expect, Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli justice and foreign minister, said: "Anarchy.”
Polish fighter jets for Ukraine
Ukraine finally got its wish — sort of. On Thursday, Poland announced that it’ll supply Kyiv with MiG-29 fighter jets, the first NATO member to do so. That sounds like a big deal, right? Yes and no.
For months, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has been begging the US and its European friends for warplanes to fight Russia. But NATO allies have been slow-walking him because that might push the Russians to escalate on the battlefield. Yet, the Soviet-era MiGs — of which Ukraine has a few dozen relics — are hardly the modern warplanes Zelensky wants, and they’re no match for Russia’s Su-27s.
Still, perhaps Poland's gambit will encourage other NATO countries to follow suit — and maybe even force a rethink on sending Ukraine more high-tech warplanes in the future. After all, that's exactly what happened weeks ago with heavy tanks until the US and Germany changed their mind.