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Analysis

Israel’s enemies gloat, friends concerned over judicial overhaul chaos

While Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah relishes over growing internal rift within the Israeli society, Washington is increasingly concerned and making calls to senior Israeli officials to manage the crisis.
Demonstrators gather around a burning flare during a protest rally against the Israeli government's judicial reform plan in Tel Aviv on July 24, 2023. Israeli lawmakers on July 24 approved a key clause of a controversial judicial reform plan that aims to curb the powers of the Supreme Court in striking down government decisions. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

TEL AVIV — The domestic upheaval gripping Israel, which peaked with Monday’s passage of a law — the "reasonableness clause" — curtailing the Supreme Court’s authority, is generating significant interest and rejoicing among Israel’s enemies. 

Following the Knesset vote, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah described the passage of the bill as “the worst day” in Israeli history. "Israeli society — which thought that its army would not be defeated and that the state must stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that Israel is a regional power — began to deteriorate in terms of its faith, its consciousness, its self-confidence and its confidence. … This is what puts it on the road to collapse, fragmentation and disappearance, God willing," the Iran-backed militia chief said in a televised speech.

Similar sentiments are voiced in Iran. "Netanyahu at the service of the Islamic Republic! The Islamic Republic cannot destroy Israel, but Netanyahu can, and that's exactly what he's doing right now,” wrote journalist Ahmed Zeid-Abadi in the Iranian newspaper Kayhan.

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