After the article by Melanie Lidman in The Jerusalem Post on April 30, stating that the Interior Ministry was accusing me of illegally constructing Palestinian homes demolished by the municipality, I wrote an op-ed that appeared on May 8. In it, I explained the motives underlying my behavior, and argued that it was a case of legitimate civil disobedience \u2013 required of any person with a conscience, when the state is conducting clearly immoral acts.<\/p>\n
Several citizens, following my article, asked how could I sit on the city council and call for civil disobedience? How could a public figure call for breaking the law? And so on, in variations on the proverb of the \u201cman spitting into the well from which he drinks\u201d \u2013 with a stronger focus on the pitcher (myself) than what it contains.<\/p>\n
The issue arising from the criticism concerns a major question in public policy \u2013 the relationship between \u201cthe law\u201d and \u201cethics.\u201d And I am sure that anyone who disliked my position is going to get angry again: I don\u2019t sanctify either \u201cthe law,\u201d or \u201cthe state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state is not a value in itself, but no more (or less!) than an organizational framework for managing society, and the law is a set of rules planned to regulate relationships. The two of them \u2013 the state and the law \u2013 are \u201cnecessary evils,\u201d logical and reasonable as long as there is an ideological alliance between the state, its laws and its citizens.<\/p>\n
But that is not the case for me, or for many others. Over the years, the state has moved away from a humanistic worldview (some say it never had one). And now, when the nationalists are ruling, and have discarded all traces of morality, our commitment to the ruling norms has shrunk to the bare minimum \u2013 and not always that.<\/p>\n
Let me choose between violating the law or helping in lawful ways, and I would unhesitatingly choose the latter. But when all lawful roads are blocked, and gatekeepers prevent me from doing my job lawfully, I will not act like the hero of Kafka\u2019s \u201cBefore the Law\u201d and wait until they let me in.<\/p>\n
I will skirt around the law to help the people for whom I was elected. We are not original \u2013 the Orthodox have always said and done the same, and so have the settlers after Gush Katif\u2019s evacuation. Now it is our turn to say: this is not our way, we do not subscribe to the injustices being performed here, the ways of the state are not ours, its values are not ours, and its acts in the territories are not in our name.<\/p>\n
So I aim to undermine the occupation from within. For people with a conscience, it is more than a right \u2013 it is a duty.<\/p>\n
We did not invent the method \u2013 Feiglin uses it in the Likud (1), and the religious Right runs pre-army programs to take control of the army from within. I would also like to place our youngsters in strategic positions, to change from within.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I dispatched myself to the political front, without concealing my aims. Before I was elected, I said publicly that I take issue with a law allowing the demolition of homes of innocent families who built without permits because they had no choice. Abiding by the law is desirable, but not a supreme value.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not talking about how legal a government action is, but how moral it is. In fact I never understood my friends who strongly disagree with outposts built on private land, as if they were less grave than those built on \u201cstate land.\u201d They fell into the trap of the settlers \u2013 who distinguish between \u201cillegal outposts\u201d and settlements built with government approval, as if that makes them legitimate.<\/p>\n
The law doesn\u2019t legitimize acts of theft, or patently immoral actions. No law will stipulate for me what can and can not be done, but only standards of conscience that discriminate between good and evil \u2013 not between legal and illegal.<\/p>\n
So it is strange when people ask why I\u2019m ready to break the law for the sake of the public I represent \u2013 because that\u2019s supposed to be the default situation of any public representative.<\/p>\n
And now a little tip \u2013 beware of politicians over-attached to the language of the law: behind \u201cthose guardians of the rule of law,\u201d hide little politicians unwilling to work hard for the public.<\/p>\n
Politicians whose voters aren\u2019t important enough to them use the law as a fig leaf.<\/p>\n
City hall has lots of politicians who do the bare minimum. We are all familiar with draconian laws that deserve to be broken, but remain in force since we have a surplus of politicians who stick close to the law, but fewer genuine politicians.<\/p>\n
To state the obvious: bad laws shouldn\u2019t be complied with! And a law that permits the demolition of homes is not only a bad law, it\u2019s a harmful law, a blot on Israeli society. I will work against this and violate this without hesitation, until someone wakes up.<\/p>\n
It is amusing that criticism levelled against me comes from groups specializing in lawbreaking.<\/p>\n
Supporters of Beit Yehonatan, Migron and Givat Ha\u2019Ulpana (2) should be the last to criticize me \u2013 or maybe the first to understand my position.<\/p>\n
Indeed, there\u2019s an apparent similarity between my position and those who freely violate court orders and build settlements on private land. But it\u2019s only an external similarity.<\/p>\n
Though we\u2019re both willing to break the law, when it comes to purpose there\u2019s a major difference between us.<\/p>\n
They do it to redeem the land, while I\u2019m working to promote peace. Purpose makes a difference and there\u2019s a huge gap between the two goals \u2013 one stems from the religious\/nationalistic sphere, the other originates in the moral\/human sphere.<\/p>\n
That creates two essentially different, even conflicting actions. \u201cIn that case, you can justify the hilltop youths,\u201d (3) critics say, and at the intellectual level I understand their efforts, but can never justify actions that I believe undermines peace.<\/p>\n
A well-known broadcaster on a right-wing radio station called me a hypocrite when I said I didn\u2019t justify the hilltop youths. He thinks that the youths and I operate the same way, but doesn\u2019t grasp that there\u2019s no correlation between the two actions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the purpose that makes the difference \u2013 not the external act of violating one law or another.<\/p>\n
Indeed, I know that selectively respecting the law will cause chaos. It\u2019s impossible to run a state when each citizen chooses which clause of the law to honor, and which not to. That\u2019s what I am working towards.<\/p>\n
Chaos would shatter the state \u2013 and afterwards it may be possible to rebuild it. What we have today cannot be repaired.<\/p>\n
We aspire to dismantle the state, with the hope that something new and far better will result from it. Too bad about the spilled blood and the shattered dreams, but we will emerge stronger.<\/p>\n
In parentheses \u2013 I\u2019m no megalomaniac; I realize I can\u2019t end the occupation but, as our rabbis said: \u201cYou are not obligated to finish the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you wish to support Meir Margalit, sign the petition<\/a><\/p>\n ___________________<\/p>\n