Yesh Atid MK Idan Roll stated that the Israeli government doesn’t have the legitimacy to impose another lockdown on its citizens and if does impose one, Israelis don’t need to adhere to it.
“This government violated the most basic contract with the public, the one that obligates it to protect us during a crisis,” Roll wrote on Twitter.
He added that the government’s coronavirus restrictions and laws are motivated by political considerations and not on data and therefore the government has no legitimacy to order a full lockdown. If it does, Roll asserted, the Israeli public is not obligated to adhere to it.
Roll’s comments were slammed by right-wing politicians, with MK Naftali Bennett calling on Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid to renounce Roll’s statements.
“This is a call for anarchy and it’s how a state and its institutions are dismantled,” Bennett wrote. “I have severe criticism of the government’s failures…but it’s an elected government.”
Likud coalition whip Miki Zohar accused Roll of calling for a rebellion. “The cat is out of the bag,” Zohar wrote. “Yesh Atid MKs and Yair Lapid will do everything, including calling for a rebellion that will transform Israel into an anarchy, only to harm the continued rule of the right, the Likud and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
I don’t know Israeli law, so I don’t know if the citizenry truly don’t have to obey lock-down orders. I also don’t claim to be a mayven on the nuances of Israeli politics, so I can’t pretend to understand how anyone gains politically from an unwarranted lock-down (not like here in the US, where it is obvious how false and political the ramping up of virus fears is). However, I do know that Israel’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely foolish and short-sighted, even after it has become fairly obvious that ultimately the virus spread will run its course, unless everyone in the country goes into solitary confinement, or something like it, for a few years. So I applaud the brave statements of the Yesh-Atid MK, at least at the face value they are being offered.
So both Hareidim and Hilonim (fanatic ones, in Yesh Atid) have noticed that Netanyahu’s pandemic policy is motivated by politics, and not based on data. The low death rate, and Israel’s relative youth compared to the other developed countries, suggest that the Likud is using the epidemic to crack down on enemies.
So we should give Netanyahu credit. He is used Covid19 to unite the Israeli people to a greater extent than anything he has ever done.