The BBC reports on the protests, arguing that they are a “battle for Israel’s political identity”. The piece quotes: “While flames lapped around melting tyres on Tel Aviv’s main highway, doctors walked out of hospitals and Israel’s main airport was shut down, Benjamin Netanyahu kept a country waiting. Unprecedented protests and strikes gripped Israel on Monday, the climax of months of dissent over the government’s plans to strip power from Israel’s judges. Now with a nation in crisis, all sides watched for the prime minister to act.” The Independent similarly argues that “the protests in Israel over the proposed overhaul of the judicial system by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are the largest and most fundamentally important in the country’s history, with repercussions that are going to continue for a long time.”

The Telegraph reported at the end of the protest on Monday that “Benjamin Netanyahu caved into pressure to freeze his plans for hugely controversial legal reforms after a day of chaos in which tens of thousands of Israeli protesters marched through cities, grounded flights and closed businesses. In a TV address on Monday evening, the embattled Israeli prime minister said he was pausing the reforms until the next parliamentary session in several weeks to avoid a “civil war” breaking out in the country. The Guardian also released a piece at the suspension of Monday’s protest questioning what’s next for Netanyahu and The Financial Times releases a podcast on this.

The Times releases a leading article, saying: “Binyamin Netanyahu finally did yesterday what hundreds of thousands of protesters have been urging him to do for months when he agreed to pause planned reforms of Israel’s Supreme Court — but not before he had brought the country to the brink of chaos. The protests escalated over the weekend when the Israeli prime minister sacked the defence minister for articulating publicly the widely held belief of the country’s security chiefs: that pushing ahead with the proposed reforms was a threat to national security. Many reservists are refusing to serve if the government pushes ahead with what the opposition says is a threat to democracy. They were joined yesterday by Israel’s largest union, which announced a national strike, leading to the closure of the country’s airspace.” The Financial Times also releases their its editorial opinion: “The threat to Israeli democracy will not disappear as long as the far right remains dominant in the government. Netanyahu will need a more permanent retreat from the policies and politicians that plunged Israel into its most dangerous domestic crisis since its foundation 75 years ago.”

The Financial Times reports on President Isaac Herzog, who has “urged political leaders to begin immediate negotiations to find a solution to the country’s political crisis, a day after the government delayed a bitterly contested judicial overhaul. Israel has been gripped by its deepest political crisis in years since Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the most rightwing in the country’s history, unveiled a plan to rein in the powers of the judiciary in January, triggering a months-long wave of protests.”

The Financial Times also publishes an opinion piece arguing that the protests are a distraction from pressing regional issues: “Iran continues its march towards the nuclear threshold, with US officials recently testifying that it would need only 12 days to enrich enough uranium to weapons grade for a nuclear bomb. Iran’s regime has survived the women’s uprising, at least for the time being, and forged strategic alliances with Russia and China. While its economy remains in trouble, it is now set to receive advanced Russian weapons and technology, a reward for the help it is providing to Vladimir Putin for his war in Ukraine.”

The Independent also releases a summary of why the protests and happening and how they have materialised over recent weeks and months. 

The Guardian reports that Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed Joe Biden’s call to “walk away” from a proposed judicial overhaul that has led to massive protests across Israel, with the Israeli prime minister responding that he does not make decisions based on pressure from abroad. Netanyahu on Monday delayed the proposal after large numbers of people spilled into the streets. The White House initially suggested Netanyahu should seek a compromise, but the US president went further in taking questions from reporters on Tuesday. “I hope he walks away from it,” Biden said.

The Guardian also releases an analytical piece, saying: “Try as he might, however, in this story Netanyahu is not playing the role of the wise king. Rather, Israel’s latest political crisis is once again completely his own doing. Bibi, as he is widely known, has for now bought some time by delaying implementing the controversial legislation weakening the power of the supreme court to the Knesset’s summer session, but the issue is far from resolved.”

Reuters reports on Yoav Gallant: “The Israeli defence chief whose dismissal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought the country’s constitutional crisis to a boil is staying in office until further notice, aides said on Tuesday, suggesting government indecision on how to proceed.”

Israel Hayom covers the confirmation late Tuesday that the Mossad had aided Greek authorities in thwarting a planned Iranian attack on Jewish targets in Athens. Two men of Pakistani origin, entering Greece via Turkey, had been apprehended on suspicion of targeting a Jewish restaurant, with the attack “considered to be imminent and to be intended to cause extensive loss of life.” Netanyahu’s office said: “After the start of the investigation of the suspects in Greece, the Mossad rendered intelligence assistance in unravelling the infrastructure, its work methods and the link to Iran. The investigation revealed that the infrastructure that operated in Greece is part of an extensive Iranian network run from Iran and spanning many countries.”

Various outlets report on the Israeli Defence Ministry and Israel Aerospace Industries’ successful joint launching of the “Ofek 13” satellite into space yesterday. Launched from a test site in central Israel using a “Shavit” launcher, “Ofek 13”, developed with assistance from the IDF’s 9900 Intelligence Unit and the Israeli Air Force, will next perform a “series of tests to ensure its propriety and performance levels.”

The Israeli media focusses widely on US President Joe Biden’s public intervention on the judicial reform question yesterday. Channel 12 reports Biden saying “Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. And I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road. Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen.” Asked if Netanyahu would soon be invited to the White House, having unusually not yet visited since his re-election, Biden replied, “No. Not in the near term.” Asked if he had spoken to Netanyahu since the escalation of an already unprecedented Israeli domestic crisis this week, Biden said “No, I did not. I delivered a message through our ambassador.” Asked if he was concerned that his remarks might be interpreted as interference in domestic Israeli politics, he replied “We don’t want to interfere… Anyway, we’re not interfering. They know my position. They know America’s position. They know the American Jewish position.”

In response to Biden, Netanyahu said publicly that “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.” Netanyahu continued: “I have known President Biden for over 40 years, and I appreciate his longstanding commitment to Israel. The alliance between Israel and the United States is unbreakable and always overcomes the occasional disagreements between us.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, in less diplomatic language, said “Israel is an independent country and no longer a star on the US flag.”

A senior American official told Channel 13 News that the coalition “can try to play the Biden administration as much as they want,” but “that isn’t helpful.” Maariv quotes former Israeli Ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon remarks on the US reaction. “I am very worried,” he said. “I received several phone calls that did not understand where Netanyahu was heading, and even some of them said that until it is proven otherwise, Netanyahu poses an existential danger to the State of Israel.” Ayalon continued, “I think the crisis is perhaps the biggest since ’91 when George Bush Sr. withheld the ten billion dollars in guarantees that [then-Prime Minister Yitzhak] Shamir requested because of the lack of trust in him. Maybe even more so, because in ’91 it was really a matter of foreign policy on the issue of settlements yes or no, but here when they see that Israel is fighting for its dignity and its soul, for them it is something that completely undermines the basis of relations.”

Haaretz’s Washington correspondent, Ben Samuels, gives his interpretation of what led to Biden’s intervention. “The heavy U.S. pressure campaign… led by US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and Brett McGurk, the top Middle East official in the White House, represented the Biden administration’s full evolution concerning the governing coalition’s plans to irretrievably damage Israel’s standing as the only democracy in the Middle East.” On the implications of no invitation to Netanyahu having been forthcoming hitherto, Samuels writes: “Nides told Israeli media that Netanyahu will receive a long-desired invitation to the White House, likely sometime after Passover. While U.S. officials have sought to downplay any controversy around the lack of invitation, a potential Netanyahu visit is widely considered contingent on whether Israel can maintain calm during Ramadan.” 

Ynet’s Ben Dror Yemini writes, concernedly, that Netanyahu “is not a wanted guest by most world leaders and has therefore weakened Israel’s international standing, which has never been worse. There are countless problems facing the country in urgent need of his attention, Iran being first on the list, but the prime minister seemed intent to distance Israel’s closest allies in Washington, without whom no action against Iran would be possible.”

Maariv’s Ben Caspit writes “the strategic alliance with the United States is the most important asset for Israel’s security and prosperity. Netanyahu knows that better than anyone. The nuclear ambiguity, the security aid, the planes, bombs, missiles, the intelligence cooperation, the political umbrella. Above all: the knowledge in the world and in the Middle East that anyone who wants to get to Washington needs to pass through Jerusalem. Not anymore.”

Adding a further angle on the American picture, Israel Hayom discusses US Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis’s announcement that he will visit Israel next month. “At a time of unnecessarily strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Florida serves as a bridge between the American and Israeli people,” DeSantis is quoted as saying, in direct reference to Biden’s concern over the judicial reform process. Haaretz elaborates that DeSantis, who “has embodied the Republican Party’s rightward shift on Israel”, will likely continue to seek to establish himself as being to the right of Republican presidential nominee rival Donald Trump on Israel.