Demonstrators march during a protest against the Benjamin Netanyahu regime in Tel Aviv on July 11, 2023. (File photo by AFP)

Tehran, July 18 (RHC)-- Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has lashed out at Western media outlets over their fallacious coverage of mass protests across the Israeli-occupied territories, saying the demonstrations come whilst the same networks overstate unrest elsewhere in the world.

“We are witnessing the continuation of months-long protests, strikes and paralyzing demonstrations attended by hundreds of thousands of people across the occupied territories,” Nasser Kan’ani wrote in a series of tweets on Sunday.

He said the protests in the occupied territories are met with the most sophisticated means of suppression and violence, and the exact number of those killed, injured and arrested at the hands of the Zionist regime’s security forces and police remains unknown.

“The Western media empire, turning a blind eye on repression and violence against protesters just as maintaining a blackout on the murder and suppression of Palestinians by Zionists, portrays such protests as a symbol of bogus democracy in Israel,” he added.

Kan’ani argued that while the same media outlets extensively cover minor gatherings and protests in a country not aligned to the West under the downright lie of defending freedom of expression and human rights, they turn a deaf ear to international demands or describe turmoil, chaos, violence and destruction as protest and revolution.

The so-called judicial overhaul scheme seeks to take away the Israeli Supreme Court’s power to overrule the decisions made by the regime’s politicians. It is also aimed at giving the Israeli cabinet a greater say in the process of selecting judges to the court.

Its supporters allege that the plan will end decades of overreach by judges, while opponents argue that it will remove necessary checks on the power that is wielded by the politicians.  Critics have also accused Netanyahu, who is on trial on several counts of corruption charges, of trying to use the scheme to quash possible verdicts against him.

Ignoring the incessant protests, the Knesset went ahead on Monday to approve the first reading of the highly controversial and divisive plan.   The bill has to clear two more readings before it can be signed into law.

Faced with raging protests as well as a wave of mass industrial actions in support of those protests, Netanyahu announced a pause in late March in his drive to get the plan approved by the Knesset.   Netanyahu claims that he has presented a watered-down version of the plan to the Knesset for final approval, which is devoid of some controversial points included in the original scheme.