Uphold the rule of law

For four months, Rabbi Dov Lior shirked his legal duty to show up for a police interrogation. That was until the police intercepted his car yesterday as he drove from Kiryat Arba to Jerusalem and detained him for questioning.

Rabbi Lior and his followers can claim all they want that the investigation was unnecessary and badgering. Lior also had the right to remain silent and not respond to the questions he was asked. But he is not free from the duty of every citizen, whether he be the president or a homeless person, to show up at the police station. Therefore, his arrest Monday was a good civics lesson, on the theme of equality before the law.

What happened next shows just how necessary that citizenship lesson was. Thugs tried to break into the Supreme Court. The group's leader, Michael Ben-Ari, who is as worthy of them as they are of him, sent an implied threat to the judges, not to mention the fact that Lior's followers have been harassing the commander of the police unit responsible for daily order in Judea and Samaria, as well as harassing a senior employee in the prosecutor's office who is directing the government's case in the Supreme Court.

This wasn't a legal demonstration. It also wasn't an outburst worthy of sympathy, like that of the settlers uprooted from their homes in Gaza. This was ill-tempered violence against the rule of law more than any protest against Lior's interrogation.

This doesn't mean that the right's complaints are illegitimate. Lior is suspected of giving his approval to a religious book that theoretically permits the killing of non-Jews, including children. This is repulsive. But a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University has said that right-wingers celebrating the liberation of Jerusalem should have their necks broken. When will he be summoned to the police station for questioning? And if the answer is never, why not-

There are many examples. Those who incite against military service, and those who snitch on soldiers carrying out their orders and duties in good faith, and foolish attempts to distinguish between attacks on settler women and children and those on their menfolk, most of whom carry guns. All this is worthy of public debate as to what is permissible and what is not.

However, we must not let the street hijack the law. We should not live by the rule that "he who is violent is a man." Everything should be run in accordance with a single rule for both the right and left, which is how, in fact, things usually do run. This certainly holds true in the Supreme Court. If that weren't the case, people like Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir couldn't have staged a protest on the outskirts of Um al-Fahm.

I can only reiterate metaphorically --not in physical but spiritual terms-- the controversial words of former Supreme Court judge Mishael Heshin, who said that the hand that is raised against the rule of law should be cut off. It must indeed be cut off, if we wish to live (together).

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו