Much has been said and written about the double standards employed as part of the Left's attempts to replace the government these days, but a look at the not-so-distant past shows great resemblance to the days of the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
The extensive media support and inclination to break the rules of democracy provided the goal is achieved are identical. Controversial actions by law enforcement agencies, including inventing precedent offenses – as the police has done in some of the investigations waged against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – selective enforcement, over-eagerness on the part of the police, and the attorney general's utter empathy with the prosecution, all while forgetting his role in protecting individual rights from the state – we are no stranger to any of them.
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In 2007, Prof. Boaz Sangero, head of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Academic College of Law, Ramat Gan, published an article summarizing the main violations of individual liberties during the 2005 disengagement, and the similarities to what we are seeing today are disturbing.
Moreover, it turns out that the moral and ethical dam breach 14 years ago was never rebuilt.
Precedent offenses? For example, the Disengagement Plan Implementation Law of 2004 stipulated that a gathering of three or more people who disturb public order would be defined as "rioting." Selective enforcement? During the disengagement, it was leaked that the police had set a new priority by which non-urgent investigation would be deferred until after Israel completes its pullout from Gaza – unless they involve rioting.
As for the attorney general's absolute backing of the police rather than protecting democracy and individual rights, Sangero concluded that, "The role of the attorney general is not to fuel police brutality while demonizing the protesters but to make sure the police remember they must protect freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration and individual liberties."
It was the framing of the situation as a "Right against Left" struggle blinded the public to the understanding of the emerging threat to democracy.
The events of the last few months, therefore, were not for the first time in which the standards of justice in Israel were compromised – that, unfortunately, has already happened.
There is no novelty in the fact that, in its refusal to rise above petty politics, the Left forgets its commitment to individual rights and democracy. But one difference remains: the members of the ideological, national-religious Right, which have experienced having their rights trampled upon and were frustrated to no end by the institutional injustice of the disengagement as a whole – they, for the most part, remain silent.
Why? What is keeping them from joining the protest? They, better than anyone, know better than to put up with a dictatorship for even one day.
