Citing ‘public safety,’ Levin demands government ignore High Court ruling allowing wartime protests

Insisting that the cabinet “has no choice but to act to prevent the very clear danger to human life and public safety,” Justice Minister Yariv Levin calls on the government to instruct law enforcement to enforce Home Front Command restrictions on public gatherings and ignore the High Court of Justice’s “illegal” and “reckless” decision to allow protests on a larger scale than permitted under current regulations.

The High Court of Justice issued an interim order yesterday allowing up to 600 people to attend the main anti-war protest in Tel Aviv, and 150 attendees in Jerusalem, Haifa and Kfar Saba on Saturday evening, despite the Home Front Command regulations imposed due to the risk of missiles from Iran.

Saturday’s ruling applied only to that evening’s protests, rather than to all protests going forward.

In the decision, judges accused police of selectively enforcing the restrictions, which cap outdoor public gatherings at 50 people.

Writing to National Security Council interim chairman Gil Reich, Levin states that the court’s ruling was “made in complete contradiction to the professional position of the Home Front Command,” arguing that “this is primarily a professional issue of risk management” and “not a legal issue.”

Levin goes on to assert that the court has a record of dangerous rulings, blaming it for the 2021 Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of a second-century sage in northern Israel — arguing that the court had stymied government plans to improve safety, despite the fact that a State Commission of Inquiry had found several senior officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responsible.

“I believe that the Cabinet has no choice but to act to prevent the very clear danger to human life and public safety,” Levin says, adding that any breach in restrictions would snowball and “seriously harm public discipline in all matters relating to compliance with Home Front Command guidelines.”

“I believe that a proposal for a resolution should be presented to the cabinet, whereby the police and all relevant entities will be instructed to uphold the Home Front Command’s directives as given, including regarding gatherings and demonstrations. This is in response to the reckless decision of the High Court judges, which constitutes a serious deviation from the court’s authority and an illegal intervention in security considerations,” he writes.