The lawless road to anarchy
Recently published Israeli crime statistics paint a grim picture. Over the two year-tenure of the current government, crime rates have risen across nearly all parameters. In Israel’s reality, many see obeying the law as a mere recommendation – and the conduct of senior government officials in recent weeks threatens to turn this chaos into official policy. The declared unwillingness of senior ministers and Knesset members to heed High Court rulings or cooperate with the police sends a message to citizens that the policy the Israeli government is advancing is one of anarchy.
Our Sages taught, “Were it not for the fear of government, each man would swallow his neighbor alive” (Pirkei Avot 3:2). Israel’s harsh reality – reckless driving on the roads, daily violence in the streets, rampant corruption – indicates that fear or respect for the government has greatly diminished. Among large segments of the population, confidence in the primary law enforcement agency, the police, is low (41%). It’s no wonder that 45% of Israelis report a low sense of personal security (data: The Israeli Democracy Index 2024).
Without the broad willingness of citizens to obey the law, Israel will become a failed state. Unfortunately, it appears that compliance with the law – the basic norm for any modern state – is trending downward. The government’s response to this threat should have been to strengthen law enforcement agencies and for the country’s leaders to themselves show respect for the law. Yet in Israel, top ministers and Knesset members provide the opposite example.
The minister of justice stands at the head of the Israeli law enforcement architecture. He is responsible for the judicial system; his foremost concern should be the public’s willingness to comply with court orders. But tragically, Minister of Justice Levin is proceeding in exactly the opposite direction. On the heels of his ongoing attacks on the Supreme Court and on the Israeli justice system since taking office, in recent weeks he has been openly battling the Supreme Court, flouting its order to select a new chief justice and refusing to commit to honoring the deadline set by the Court.
He is not alone. In recent days, the Supreme Court issued an order extending the term of two members of the Public Broadcasting Corporation’s (Kan) governing council. In response, the minister of communications declared that “the interim order was issued without authority and contrary to the law,” and said that “there is a constitutional bar to implementing it due to a severe infringement of the separation of powers and the foundations of democracy.” In other words, he declared he would not carry out the order. Adding to this, Knesset member Tali Gottlieb, who is suspected of disclosing classified information, was summoned for questioning by the Lahav 433 unit of the Israel Police. She responded by saying, “I advised [the investigator] to refrain from contacting me, as I have no intention of appearing.”
Power struggles between the judiciary and the Knesset or the government are nothing new. To a certain extent, separation of powers in a democracy involves achieving balance through such struggles. But in recent years, the conflict has ceased to be a substantive debate over proper balance. A series of right-wing politicians, led by the prime minister, have turned the justice system into a punching bag and made the Supreme Court the scapegoat for all the government’s failings and shortcomings.
What we are seeing now is at a new level – or more precisely, a new low – for the current government, its ministers and elected representatives. Their outright refusal to abide the most basic duty – to obey the law – sets, through word and deed, a standard of disregard and disrespect of the court and the police. In practice, it reduces every court order, every summons for questioning, or any enforcement action whatsoever to barely a suggestion. These declarations and actions – rejecting the Supreme Court as the authorized interpreter of the law – undermine the very foundations of the state.
This is no longer just about trampling “the rule of law” in the abstract. The behavior of these elected officials, these public servants, sets a new and dangerous policy line. Under this de facto “policy,” these officials – who are supposed to serve as personal examples of compliance with the law they themselves legislate and are tasked with enforcing – render the law meaningless. If they are not stopped from violating the law, the outcome will be nothing short of anarchy.