Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated outside Israel’s parliament on Monday, expressing outrage over plans to give conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more control over the country’s judicial system. The protests come as Israeli lawmakers engage in a contentious debate over the plans, and a day after President Isaac Herzog pleaded for a deal on television to avert “constitutional collapse”. A vote by the Knesset Constitution Committee on Monday resulted in the first section of the plans being sent to the plenum. The meeting itself was a heated affair, with some lawmakers forcibly removed. Members of parliament sang folk songs of protest, while others exchanged insults of “fascist” and “traitor”, some with tears streaming down their faces, according to Reuters. The plans would give Netanyahu, who faces corruption charges, more voice in the court’s judicial appointments, while strangling the Supreme Court’s power to kill legislation or oppose the prime minister, according to Reuters . “I call on the leaders of the opposition: stop. Stop deliberately dragging the country into anarchy,” Netanyahu said in a statement, according to Reuters. “Most Israeli citizens don’t want anarchy. They want a substantive discourse and in the end they want unity.
