Haaretz
Adar2 17, 5765
A few dozen people gathered last week outside
Ma'asiyahu Prison to protest the arrest of dozens of young people who
allegedly blocked roads during recent anti-disengagement demonstrations.
They wanted to remind people of the mass demonstrations organized by Shas
when Aryeh Deri was sent to the same prison.
Although their
pretentions were greater than their abilities - the leaders of the
rightist groups who want to disrupt life in Israel during the coming
months have something to learn from the passions ignited among experienced
Shas activists - the goal was the same: To raise a hue and a cry over an
imagined wrong and to create public support to frustrate due process and
the enforcement of the law.
Aryeh Deri was sent to jail at the end
of a long investigation and a judicial process in which he was given every
possible opportunity to prove his innocence. He was sentenced to three
years' imprisonment (after his appeal was accepted in part by the Supreme
Court) for serious offenses of fraud and corruption. Deri's crimes were
defined as crimes of moral turpitude, meaning that he is ineligible, for a
time, to hold public office.
In spite of the long process, which
Deri delayed by employing various tactics, including refusing for quite
some time to cooperate with the police investigation by exercising his
right to keep silent, he and his followers did not accept the verdict.
They accused the police, the State Prosecutor's Office and the courts of
ethnic discrimination and extraneous considerations.
The attempts
to lift the yoke of justice from Deri's neck, which also became entangled
in the Bar-On-Hebron affair, spearheaded attacks on the justice system and
manage to undermine its status with the public.
There are signs of
a new such attack: The settlers are rebelling against the rule of law and
the authority of the state. As if that were not enough, when the law
catches up with them, they act as if they are the ones who have been
wronged.
The settlers and their official leadership openly declare
they do not accept cabinet and Knesset decisions to withdraw from the Gaza
Strip and the northern West Bank. They challenge the legitimacy of these
decisions, and there are those among them who declare outright their
preference for another source of authority - rabbis who say that halakha
(Jewish religious law) holds precedence over the laws of the state. They
say openly that they will violate the law, oppose evacuation and defy the
authorities. They justify this position by saying they are just exercising
their rights to dissent and freedom of expression, and are outraged when
they are criticized for the damage their demonstrations do to public
order.
Some declare that they are prepared to pay any price for
their defiance, that is, to be judged and bear any punishment that is
meted out. In actual fact, however, the moment a few yeshiva boys and
religious high school girls are arrested on suspicion of burning tires on
the coastal highway, they and their families loudly complain about the
arrests and their conditions of confinement. It won't be long before a
lobby is established to extricate the misbehaving young people from the
hands of justice. Such things have happened before: In many cases, yeshiva
students arrested for violence during protests over Sabbath observance in
Jerusalem had sympathizers within the political system who worked for
their release from custody. The police usually acquiesced to the
pressure.
More than the White House or U.S. Ambassador Dan
Kurtzer's briefings, the fate of the disengagement plan will be decided on
Israel's highways and in the settlements to be dismantled. If the
authorities do not defeat protesters and others who seek to employ force
to undermine the implementation of the plan, the very foundations of
public order will collapse and the state will be dragged into
chaos.
The trial of strength over the state's ability to enforce
its will is already underway at the Poleg junction, Yitzhar, Tapuah, Gush
Katif and the northern West Bank. A police force, army and judicial system
that blinks first in the face of the aggressive behavior, obstruction and
insolence of right-wing lawbreakers are ensuring truely serious trouble
for the country.