Nearly 1,000 Israeli artists, writers and academics, in a joint letter to German and British ambassadors, are calling for Netanyahu’s upcoming visits to be canceled due to his government’s controversial judicial reform.

“The State of Israel is currently facing a terrible crisis, the most extreme in its history, an accelerating dangerous process led by an elected government that seeks to transform it from a prosperous democracy into a theocratic dictatorship,” said the letter, signed among others by writer David Grossman and sculptor Sigalit Landau.

Netanyahu is due to begin a three-day visit to Germany today, and reports say the Israeli prime minister plans to visit London in the second half of March.

Berlin police today announced increased security measures in connection with the visit of the Prime Minister of Israel.

“We are asking Germany and the UK to inform the accused Netanyahu of the cancellation of his planned state visits. If these visits go according to plan, a black shadow will hang over them,” the authors of the letter say.

Netanyahu has been accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his critics say the judicial reforms he is pushing are part of his attempt to escape.

“Litigation continues and continues. To avoid justice, Netanyahu organized a conspiracy against the State of Israel. […] condemned Jewish terrorists who promote racist, homophobic and anti-democratic programs against all Israelis at home and abroad,” condemn the signatories of the letter.

Netanyahu returned to Israel yesterday Monday after a visit to Italy.

The cultural and academic figures who signed the letter claim that Netanyahu wants to turn the Israeli police into “a political police force, a tool that every dictatorship needs to impose state power on its citizens.”

However, they argue that the reforms “will cause serious damage to civil rights in Israel, including the right to literary and artistic freedom of speech, and will lead to the abolition of the freedom of writers and artists in Israel.”

The right-wing and far-right coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has ruled Israel since December last year, is pushing for justice reform that will give the government more power to choose judges and limit the powers of the Supreme Court.

Critics of the government see this as a threat to the separation of powers and to the democratic character of the country as a whole.

The country has experienced a historic wave of protests over the past ten weeks, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in many cities against judicial reform being promoted by the right-wing/far-right government of Netanyahu.

During Netanyahu’s departure for Rome last week, the Israeli prime minister even had to be transported by helicopter to Ben Gurion International Airport as protesters blocked roads.

Source: APE-MPE, dpa