Protesters begin four-day march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to stop Reasonableness Standard Bill

While the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee have been working long hours to advance the Reasonableness Standard Bill, protesters have continued their mass demonstrations across the State of Israel.

On Tuesday night, a group of some 250 protesters began a march from Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, the site of the main weekly protests, all the way to Jerusalem, a total of 50 kilometers (31 miles).

The group intends to reach Jerusalem in time to meet up with a larger organized protest on Saturday evening, which they called “the mother of all demonstrations.”

The protesters will march along Israel's busy Highway 1, with Israel Police allowing the paraders to use the right lane of the highway.

The coordinated group will make stops every night while making their way to the capital city, primarily marching during the evening and morning hours, to avoid the worst of the blistering "Kleon" heatwave that Israel and parts of Europe are currently experiencing.

The group will reportedly publish regular updates of their location to enable other interested protesters to join the march. Shikma Bressler, one of the protest leaders, called for citizens to join the march on Wednesday.

“Those who have difficulty walking can come and join us in vehicles; it has meaning. Today there were a lot more people than we thought there would be at first,” she said.

Tuesday saw continued protests as groups tried to block highways and train stations to protest judicial reform legislation, the controversial Reasonableness Standard Bill, in particular. The police reported some 45 arrests throughout the day.

One high-tech protest leader who helped initiate the march, Moshe Redman, said, “We will get to Jerusalem on Saturday night and set up tents around the Knesset.”

“We plan to be there on Sunday morning when the Knesset votes on the second and third readings of the proposed bill,” he told reporters.

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee is currently reading through an unprecedented 27,000 reservations to the bill that have been filed by opposition lawmakers, along with the Student Protest Movement.

By Wednesday morning, they had reportedly worked through 23,000 of the reservations, although opposition members of the committee accused the coalition of moving too quickly

They requested the remaining 1,375 reservations be voted on individually. Until now, the reservations were reportedly being voted on in groups of 20, organized by topic.

Coalition chairperson and Knesset Member Ofir Katz said the committee had already devoted 18 hours just to the reservations.

Knesset legal advisor Sagit Afik said the decision of how to handle the remaining reservations is up to Committee head Knesset Member Simcha Rothman.

Rothman, of the Religious Zionism party, has been spearheading the judicial reforms on behalf of the Israeli government.