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Protests across Israel as Netanyahu’s government introduces bill to weaken courts | CNN

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Protests across Israel as Netanyahu’s government introduces bill to weaken courts | CNN


Jerusalem
CNN
 — 

A controversial set of payments that might weaken the independence of Israel’s judicial system handed its first studying within the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, within the early hours of Tuesday morning native time.

Each payments handed 63 to 47. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition authorities has 64 seats within the 120-member chamber.

A invoice should go three readings within the Knesset to turn out to be regulation.

Netanyahu’s allies pressed ahead with the laws regardless of tens of 1000’s of Israelis demonstrating in opposition to the modifications over the previous seven weeks.

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On Monday, protesters blocked roads in cities throughout Israel throughout demonstrations in opposition to Netanyahu’s deliberate judicial reforms.

Demonstrators in Jerusalem turned the streets across the Supreme Courtroom and Knesset right into a sea of Israeli flags, which organizers have been handing out earlier than the occasion started.

Among the many protesters have been a couple of dozen girls wearing lengthy purple attire and white head coverings, like handmaids within the Margaret Atwood novel “The Handmaid’s Story,” together with drummers, horn-blowers and no less than one juggler balancing an Israeli flagpole on his nostril.

The Jerusalem demonstration was visibly smaller than one in the identical location per week earlier, however nonetheless appeared to quantity about 75,000 folks an hour and 1 / 4 after it was scheduled to start, crowd management professional Ofer Grinboim Liron advised CNN. Liron is the CEO of Crowd Options, an organization that focuses on crowd dynamics at occasions and venues.

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Protesters had begun to disperse by 4:30pm native time (9:30am ET), a CNN group there noticed. The demonstration had largely completed early night native time in Jerusalem.

However quickly after, chaotic scenes emerged contained in the Knesset because the session to formally debate the invoice for its first studying in parliament started.

Many opposition lawmakers from former Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid get together raised Israeli flags within the chamber, some draping them over their shoulders, and shouted over authorities lawmaker Simcha Rothman as debate started. Knesset safety took flags away from lawmakers and escorted some out of the chamber.

The payments have thus far sparked weeks of public protests, a plea from President Isaac Herzog to delay for negotiations, and a uncommon intervention into Israeli home politics by US President Joe Biden.

Demonstrators dressed as handmaids from the dystopian book

Netanyahu’s coalition is searching for probably the most sweeping overhaul of the Israeli authorized system for the reason that nation’s founding. Probably the most important modifications would permit a easy majority within the Knesset to overturn Supreme Courtroom rulings.

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The reforms additionally search to vary the way in which judges are chosen, and take away authorities ministries’ unbiased authorized advisers, whose opinions are binding.

US President Joe Biden has expressed issues over the reforms, saying: “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they’re each constructed on robust establishments, on checks and balances, on an unbiased judiciary. Constructing consensus for basic modifications is basically necessary to make sure that the folks purchase into them to allow them to be sustained.”

On Sunday, Netanyahu defended the judicial reform.

“Israel is a democracy and can stay a democracy, with majority rule and correct safeguards of civil liberties,” he mentioned throughout an handle to the Convention of Presidents of Main American Jewish Organizations.

“All democracies ought to respect the desire of different free peoples, simply as we respect their democratic selections.

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“There’s been plenty of rhetoric that’s frankly reckless and harmful, together with requires bloodshed within the streets and requires a civil warfare. It isn’t going to occur. There’s not going to be a civil warfare,” the Prime Minister added.

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Revolutionary Guard commanders vow response to Israel attack on Iran

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Revolutionary Guard commanders vow response to Israel attack on Iran

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The top commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards issued a stark warning to Israel on Thursday, vowing that Tehran would deliver a harsh response to last week’s Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic.

Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the guards corps, warned in a speech that Iran’s retaliation would be “unimaginable” as Iranian officials stepped up their rhetoric against Israel.

“Israelis think they can launch a couple of missiles and change history,” he said. “You have not forgotten . . . how Iranian missiles opened up the sky . . . and made you sleepless.”

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Separately his deputy, Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, told Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese television channel close to Iran, that a response would be “inevitable”. In more than 40 years, “we have not left any aggression without a response”, he said.

The belligerent comments came as the Islamic regime weighs its options following Israel’s attack on Saturday, during which Israeli war planes launched three waves of strikes at Iranian military installations. The targets included missile factories and air defence systems in three provinces, including Tehran.

Regime insiders told the Financial Times that the options being considered include a possible strike before next week’s US presidential election, or Iran’s leaders could decide to hold off for now.

“The winner of the US election could take an Iranian attack personally and act against Iran. So, if Iran wants to respond to Israel, the best time is before the US election,” one insider said. “The only thing that could change this would be a fair breakthrough in ceasefire talks between [Hizbollah in] Lebanon and Israel which does not seem very likely.”

The US has this week stepped up efforts to broker a deal to end the conflict that has lasted more than a year between Israel and Hizbollah, Iran’s most important proxy.

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But there was little optimism of a breakthrough as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel retain the right to unilaterally enforce any agreement that would lead to Hizbollah withdrawing from southern Lebanon.

Another Iranian insider indicated Tehran might opt to maintain psychological pressure on Israel rather than launch a direct assault.

“With Hizbollah launching tens of rockets into Israel daily in a legitimate war, a direct response may not be necessary right now,” the insider said. “What benefits us is not a direct war with Israel. We need to keep the level of people’s stress low so that they can live their lives. This is the top priority.”

But an Iranian analyst said the dilemma for Tehran was “that Israel would take any delay in Iran’s response as a sign of weakness and would feel emboldened”.

Iran’s initial reaction to Israel’s strikes — which were in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage fired at the Jewish state on October 1 — suggested that Tehran’s response would be measured and not immediate, Iranian analysts said.

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Speaking on Sunday, a day after Israel’s attack, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader and ultimate decision maker, refrained from vowing to retaliate.

Instead, he said the strikes should neither be “overestimated or underestimated”. Iranian state media played down the impact of the attack, which killed four soldiers and a civilian, saying the damage was limited.

But Tehran has shown a willingness to risk an escalation with Israel as regional hostilities triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack have spread across the Middle East, thrusting Iran’s years-long shadow war with its regional enemy into the open.

In April, it fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in a clearly telegraphed retaliation for an Israeli strike on the republic’s embassy compound in Syria, which killed several senior guards commanders.

It gave little notice before launching 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, a more severe attack that was in response to the Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader and a close confidant of Khamenei.

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“Only a shock can stop Israel from its aggressions and free the region from the current stalemate,” the first regime insider said. “Iran might even go for a big bang and do something totally outside Israelis’ calculations as there is no other way to stop it.”

The US, which has pledged an “ironclad” commitment to the defence of Israel, has warned Iran not to retaliate as western nations have sought to contain the crisis amid heightened fears of all-out war.

“We will not hesitate to act in self defence. Let there be no confusion. The United States does not want to see further escalation,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said this week.

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Harris says Trump 'devalues' women's ability to make their own choices

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Harris says Trump 'devalues' women's ability to make their own choices

PHOENIX — Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s remarks this week about protecting women whether they “like it or not” is another sign of how he “devalues” women.

“His latest comment is just the most recent in a series of examples that we have seen from him in his words and deeds about how he devalues the ability of women to have the choice and the freedom to make decisions about their own body,” Harris told NBC News in an exclusive interview.

The vice president also argued that most Americans “believe that women are intelligent enough and should have and be respected for their agency to make decisions for themselves about what is in their best interest,” rather than the government or Trump “telling them what to do.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately provide a comment on Harris’ remarks.

Follow live updates on the 2024 election

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Trump on Wednesday said that his “people” had instructed him not to say that he wanted to “protect the women.”

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.’ I’m going to protect them,” Trump said during his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press NOW,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt was asked if she can see how Trump’s comments about doing something “whether the women like it or not” might make women uncomfortable.

“No, I can’t. Because if you look at the full context of President Trump’s remarks, he brought this up in the context of illegal immigration and protecting women from the illegal immigrant criminals,” Leavitt said Thursday.

Harris on Thursday also talked about President Joe Biden’s “garbage” remark from earlier this week, in which he appeared to criticize either Trump supporters or a comedian who delivered racist jokes at Trump’s rally in New York, and reiterated her view that “we should never criticize people based on who they vote for.”

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In addressing Biden’s comments, Harris pointed to Trump’s rhetoric about “the enemy from within” and comparing the U.S. to a “garbage can.”

“He does not understand that most people are exhausted with his rhetoric, exhausted with that approach, exhausted with an approach that Donald Trump has that’s trying to divide our country and have Americans point fingers at each other,” she said. “They’re done with it, and they’re ready to turn the page.”

Harris’ comments came before her rally in Phoenix. Her next campaign stops on Thursday are in Nevada, where she will hold rallies in Reno and Las Vegas.

The Sun Belt blitz comes as polling indicates a neck-and-neck presidential race less than a week before Election Day.

When asked by NBC News what Harris thinks her late mother would say to her in the final days before the election, Harris smiled.

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“‘Just go beat him,’” she said, laughing. “That’s probably what she’d say. Yeah, that’s my mother.”

Yamiche Alcindor reported from Phoenix, and Megan Lebowitz from Washington, D.C.

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Election 2024 Polls: Senate Races

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Election 2024 Polls: Senate Races

About our polling averages

Our averages include polls collected by The New York Times and by FiveThirtyEight. The estimates adjust for a variety of factors, including the recency and sample size of a poll, whether a poll represents likely voters, and whether other polls have shifted since a poll was conducted.

We also evaluate whether each pollster: Has a track record of accuracy in recent electionsIs a member of a professional polling organizationConducts probability-based sampling

These elements factor into how much weight each poll gets in the average. And we consider pollsters that meet at least two of the three criteria to be “select pollsters,” so long as they are conducting polls for nonpartisan sponsors. Read more about our methodology.

The Times conducts its own national and state polls in partnership with Siena College. Those polls are included in the averages. Follow Times/Siena polling here.

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Maine and Nebraska award two electoral votes to the statewide winner and a single electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. (Maine has two congressional districts, and Nebraska has three.) Historical election results for these districts are calculated based on votes cast within the current boundaries of the district.

Sources: Polling averages by The New York Times. Individual polls collected by FiveThirtyEight and The Times.

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