What happened
The overhaul's core provisions would have let a simple Knesset majority override Supreme Court rulings, given the governing coalition effective control over the committee that appoints judges, and stripped government legal advisers (who had repeatedly blocked ministers under corruption indictment, including Netanyahu's own allies, from certain actions) of much of their power to bind ministries. Critics — including a majority of Israel's own legal establishment — argued the combination would remove the last institutional check on a government that already controls the Knesset and the executive.
The protest movement that followed was unusual in scale and composition: it drew reservists, including from elite intelligence and air force units, who threatened to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the changes passed, alongside business leaders warning of capital flight and credit downgrades, and former heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF warning publicly that the changes threatened Israel's democratic character. President Isaac Herzog, a largely ceremonial figure, took the unusual step of publicly warning of the risk of civil war if a compromise wasn't reached.
The government paused the legislation in March 2023 after the defense minister was fired for warning of military readiness risks from reservist refusals, then passed a scaled-back version anyway in July 2023 removing the courts' power to void government decisions on a 'reasonableness' standard — the country's Supreme Court itself struck that specific law down in January 2024, the first time it had ever voided a Basic Law. The broader controversy was still unresolved, and largely overtaken politically, when the October 7 attack occurred nine months later.