Controversy has arisen in Israel over a campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's associates for an immunity law and to override the authority of the Supreme Court. In other words, Israel is now speeding headfirst toward a constitutional crisis — as was previously reported by Al-Monitor. This, in turn, could drag the country into a social-political collision between the two opposing factions.

According to all the signs, this collision could take the form of a widespread protest movement or even a popular revolt. Such a movement would make the 2011 social justice protests — which involved a million Israelis, the largest demonstration in the history of the state — look like a walk in the park. "We will set the streets on fire," say the Blue and White party leaders, who have been organizing a massive demonstration in Tel Aviv to take place on the night of May 25. The opposition party’s highest echelons swear they will not allow Netanyahu to become Israel’s almost omnipotent Erdogan without a fight. "We’ll fight for our values, for our political viewpoints, for democracy," they say. Senior members of the party, led by former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, were already photographed holding a poster that read “Waive my immunity” — a reference to the tremendous efforts made by the prime minister to secure immunity vis-a-vis the indictments piling up against him.

Opposition Chairman and head of Blue and White Benny Gantz declared in his maiden speech in the Knesset that “Netanyahu holds himself above everything (i.e., above the law), and we shall fight in the squares, in the neighborhoods, in the schools, in the media and in the legal arena.” Gantz’s words and images were reminiscent of the United Kingdom’s Winston Churchill “We shall fight them on the beaches’’ speech at the beginning of World War II — a reference that was no coincidence.

Obviously, no one in Israel would even think to accuse a rival political party in Israel of any linkage to Nazism. Still, the Churchill reference illustrates what is already clear to both sides — that Israel is facing a decisive social battle. It also makes it clear that the outcome of this struggle will decide the character of the Jewish state: whether the rule of law will prevail as well as the supremacy of the courts and the liberal values as expressed by the state’s founders. The alternative is conservatism, extremism, erosion of democracy, and that the supremacy of the regime and of religion will continue to gain power.