On January 4, 2023, the newly elected government led by longtime Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled its “judicial reform”: a plan to legislate four constitutional amendments that would effectively dismantle the existing checks on the power of the executive.

Despite having a solid majority in parliament, just one of these amendments passed into law — and was quickly struck down by the Supreme Court. The four amendments were introduced as the reform’s “first phase;” a second phase was never announced.

At the core of this achievement was a small, ad-hoc group of concerned former public servants and activists. Under the group's leadership, initial anti-government protests quickly metastasized into the largest protest movement in Israel’s history. The small leadership group became the Protest Headquarters — a well-oiled protest machine with a full-time staff and thousands of volunteers from 200 organizations. At its peak, the movement had 400,000 people marching in the streets of a country with a population of 10 million.

What were the keys to the Protest Headquarters’ success? In this panel, we ask this of three key members of the Protest Headquarters. We will discuss the mechanisms that enabled its growth, the challenges and lessons learned from the movement, and the future prospects for Israeli democracy, with attention to dilemmas as Israelis return to the polls in late 2026.
 

More About the Speakers:

Yossi Kucik previously held several senior positions in the Israeli public sector, including Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Commissioner of Wages at the Ministry of Finance, and Director-General of the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, among other key roles. Following his public service career, Kucik transitioned into the private sector. He currently serves as Chairman of Direct Insurance Group, one of Israel’s leading financial groups. In addition, he owns two consulting firms: one specializing in Media strategy and the other focused on compensation and wage consulting. Kucik is also extensively involved in public and social initiatives. He serves as Chairman of Beit Yigal Allon and is a member of the Presidium of the Israel Democracy Institute, among several other public leadership roles. In January 2023, Kucik, together with Orni Petruschka, Dan Halutz, and Yehuda Eder, established the headquarters of the protest movement opposing the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul, which they viewed as a threat to Israeli democratic institutions. Joined by additional public figures and activists, the headquarters played a pivotal role in the movement, bringing millions of Israelis to the streets in protest and successfully halting significant parts of the proposed legislation affecting Israel’s democratic framework. Kucik holds an MBA from the Hebrew University, is married to Nirit, a father of three, and a grandfather of four.

Orni Petruschka works to make Israel an open, liberal, and democratic society for all its citizens. In recent years, Orni has been a social entrepreneur. He co-founded the Resistance Headquarters against the current Israeli government; initiated several activities to promote philanthropy, especially for supporting liberal-democracy causes; and was involved in activities for advancing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition, Orni co-chairs the Abraham Initiatives, an NGO which promotes equality and inclusion for Israel’s Arab citizens, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Molad — the Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy. Previously, Orni served as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, studied electrical engineering at the Technion and at Cornell University, and had a career as a technology entrepreneur, having started and managed two successful telecom equipment companies that were successfully acquired, one of which was considered a landmark transaction for Israeli high tech. Orni lives in Ramat Gan; he is married and a father of 3 daughters.

Adv. Dina Zilber, former Deputy Attorney General of Israel, is regarded as one of the country’s leading jurists. During her eight-year tenure as Deputy Attorney General (2012–2020), Adv. Zilber was responsible for providing ongoing legal counsel to the government and its various ministries on a wide range of complex, sensitive, and highly consequential matters, and for shaping the Attorney General’s positions across many areas within her responsibility. Prior to this appointment, Adv. Zilber served for 16 years as a senior attorney in the High Court of Justice Department at the State Attorney’s Office, where she represented the State before the Israeli Supreme Court in more than 1,600 petitions concerning major public importance. Adv. Zilber has authored two books: Bureaucracy as Politics (2006) and In the Name of the Law: The Attorney General and the Affairs that Shook the State (2012). She also initiated and edited an additional volume titled Roots in Law, published in honor of Israel’s 70th anniversary — a panoramic collection surveying the development of Israeli legal practice from the founding of the state to the present day, written by legal professionals from across all generations and departments of the Ministry of Justice. Adv. Zilber has received numerous public honors and awards, including the “Women at the Forefront” Award in the Government and Politics category (2017); the Leon Charney Award of Recognition from the Deborah Forum – Women in Foreign Policy and National Security (2018); the Transparency Shield Award from Transparency International Israel (2019); the Gorny Award for Public Sector Jurists (2020); and the Knight of Quality Government Award in the Executive Branch category (2020). Adv. Zilber holds an LL.M. with honors from Tel Aviv University. Over the years, she has taught undergraduate and graduate law students at various academic institutions. She lectures extensively in public and professional forums, and regularly publishes both legal scholarship and opinion articles in the press. Since the onset of Israel's judicial overhaul, she has also served as a key member of the Protest Headquarters Advisory Board.
 

Drawing on his New York Times–bestselling book, Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare, and his cover essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, “How to Fight an Economic War,” Edward Fishman will discuss how globalization gave rise to an age of economic warfare. As governments increasingly weaponize finance, technology, energy, and supply chains, the world is in the midst of what Fishman calls an "economic arms race” and a "scramble for economic security." From sanctions on Russia and Iran to the U.S.-China struggle over semiconductors and rare earths to the shock waves caused by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, the session will examine how economic warfare is reshaping global power and the international order.

The Arab world is experiencing a period of profound change. Wars, geopolitical rivalries, and overlapping crises are challenging the foundations of political stability and reconfiguring longstanding patterns of state–society relations.

How should we make sense of the historical significance of this moment? How might it shape the future of political change and stability in the region?

To explore these questions, join CDDRL's Program on Arab Reform and Development (ARD) for a wide-ranging conversation with renowned historian and leading Middle East scholar Joel Beinin, in dialogue with ARD Associate Director Hesham Sallam. Drawing on decades of scholarship, Beinin will reflect on how the region’s current crises fit within broader historical patterns, and what they may signal for future trajectories.

The Jan Koum Israel Studies Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law invites you to a seminar with Yossi Melman, one of Israel's most prominent intelligence journalists and a New York Times bestselling author, for a conversation on the lessons emerging from Israel's recent intelligence challenges. Melman will draw on decades of reporting on Mossad, Shin Bet, and Military Intelligence while exploring the failures, adaptations, and ongoing dilemmas facing Israel's intelligence community in the wake of the Gaza war, the confrontation with Iran, and the conflict in Lebanon.

The structured conversation — led by Or Rabinowitz and introduced by Amichai Magen — will be followed by a Q&A, offering participants the opportunity to engage directly with one of the foremost analysts of Israeli security.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Yossi Melman is one of his country's leading investigative reporters, as well as a security and intelligence commentator for the daily newspaper Haaretz.

He has written 10 books on his subject matters. One of them, Every Spy a Prince, was a New York Times bestseller. His book Spies Against Armageddon, a history of Israel's intelligence community, was published in the US in 2012. (Read his tips for writing about espionage and military intelligence in How To Write a History of Something Secret).

He is the recipient of the Sokolov Award, Israel's most prestigious journalism gong, and a few other Jewish American awards. He has also created and written Hebrew and English scripts for film documentaries. One of them, Inside the Mossad, is a four-part Netflix series.

On Wednesday, May 13, the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to welcome Matthew Levitt — an expert on counterterrorism and intelligence — to discuss the war with Iran and the aftermath in the Middle East.