Protests Against Netanyahu Spread to Europe, US

Israeli protesters attend a rally against controversial government plans to give lawmakers more control of the judicial system, Tel Aviv, February 4, 2023. (AFP)
Israeli protesters attend a rally against controversial government plans to give lawmakers more control of the judicial system, Tel Aviv, February 4, 2023. (AFP)
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Protests Against Netanyahu Spread to Europe, US

Israeli protesters attend a rally against controversial government plans to give lawmakers more control of the judicial system, Tel Aviv, February 4, 2023. (AFP)
Israeli protesters attend a rally against controversial government plans to give lawmakers more control of the judicial system, Tel Aviv, February 4, 2023. (AFP)

Demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government were held on Sunday in 40 Israeli cities across the country as around 100,000 people gathered to protest against legal changes that could weaken the Supreme Court.

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated in several European and US cities.

Protests were held in Berlin, London and Basel in Europe, Vancouver in Canada and Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York and Miami in the US.

People chanted slogans denouncing “Netanyahu's plan against harming democracy.”

Netanyahu’s coalition government is seeking to overhaul the judiciary, in what critics perceive as a threat to democracy.

Meanwhile, hundreds of commanders from the Israeli military will hold a 50-km march on Wednesday to protest against the PM and the government. The march will start from the Armored Corps Museum in Latrun to the headquarters of the Supreme Court in West Jerusalem.

General Tal Rousso, who heads the organizing committee, said the demonstration is important because it is led by Israel's most important commanders who will speak out to save the country from dictatorship.

He stressed that the march includes military figures from the right, left and center, as well as from all social strata and sects.

“We have always sacrificed our lives to save the country from enemies. Today, we find ourselves compelled to protect it from the enemies of democracy and the supporters of the government's plan to demolish the judicial system,” Rousso said.

Protests have been held in Israel for the past five week.

On Saturday, some 40,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv for two anti-government protests in the coastal city. They marched for two hours despite the rainy weather. Also, around 10,000 people took to the streets in Haifa and 5,000 people in Jerusalem.

Local media reported that protests were held in 40 cities across the country.

The demonstrators waved Israeli flags and banners reading, “No to the coup,” “No to half democracy” and “Criminal government ruled by corrupt people.”

The protests included activists of the liberal right and even from settlers and the religious right, who only raised the Israeli flag.

In Haifa, opposition leader Yair Lapid took part in the protest. He said: “We will fight here in the streets, we will fight in the Knesset, we will fight in the courts, we will save our country, because we refuse to live in an undemocratic country.”

The government plan to overhaul the judiciary will significantly limit the Supreme Court’s ability to review laws and strike them down.

It also includes passing a law that would allow the governing coalition to override Supreme Court rulings by a simple majority of 61 votes in the 120-member Knesset.



Trade on Agenda as Trump Heads to Scotland for Diplomacy and Golf

 President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP)
President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP)
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Trade on Agenda as Trump Heads to Scotland for Diplomacy and Golf

 President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP)
President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP)

US President Donald Trump departed for Scotland on Friday for a mix of diplomacy, business and leisure, as a huge UK security operation swung into place amid planned protests near his family-owned golf resorts.

The president, whose mother was born in Scotland, is expected to split his time between two seaside golf courses bearing his name, in Turnberry on the southwestern coast and Aberdeen in the northeast.

Air Force One was due to arrive around at 8:20 pm local time (1920 GMT) with the president and White House staff, and Trump has no public events scheduled for Saturday or Sunday, the White House said.

However, he is due to meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip.

"We're going to do a little celebrating together, because we got along very well," Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday, calling Starmer "a good guy" doing "a very good job".

He said they would discuss "fine tuning" the bilateral trade deal struck in May, and would "maybe even improve it".

But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK demand for flexibility over reduced steel and aluminium tariffs.

Trump has exempted London from blanket 50 percent tariffs on imports of both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear.

"If I do it for one, I have to do it for all," Trump told reporters, when asked if he had any "wiggle room" for the UK on the issue.

The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the pair's agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognize a Palestinian state.

- Protests -

Trump is expected to return to the UK in September for a state visit -- his second -- at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish.

During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18.

Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family's construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday.

Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump's golf courses, have said there will be a "significant operation across the country over many days".

Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation "shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries".

He added it would provide Scotland with a "platform to make its voice heard on the issues that matter, including war and peace, justice and democracy".

Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland's oil industry.

In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should "stop with the costly and unsightly windmills" as he urged incentivizing drilling for oil in the North Sea.