Lapid: Call to ignore Supreme Court exposes IDF soldiers to global prosecution

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni’s call to ignore Supreme Court rulings will make IDF soldiers vulnerable to international lawsuits.

“A country whose government ignores court rulings exposes its soldiers to international lawsuits and being hunted around the world,” the Yesh Atid party leader says.

“On the other hand, it’s well known that you’ve never really cared about IDF soldiers,” he adds.

Gafni’s ultra-Orthodox UTJ party has threatened to oppose the proposed state budget if legislation isn’t first passed to regulate ultra-Orthodox enlistment and exemptions to mandatory military service.

Israel has long relied on the argument that, as a functioning democracy with an independent judiciary, it does not fall under the International Criminal Court’s prosecutorial mandate, which permits it to intervene, including arresting soldiers, only when a state is unwilling or unable to carry out genuine legal proceedings.

Critics of the government argue that efforts to override or openly defy Supreme Court rulings, sideline the attorney general, and push forward the judicial overhaul have undermined Israel’s credibility as a state that holds itself to democratic and legal standards.

Meanwhile, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi writes in support of Gafni, calling in a post on X for “obedience to the law, not illegal orders or an attorney general who was lawfully dismissed. It’s time. Simple. Jewish and democratic.”

Karhi and other ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have repeatedly called for disobeying High Court rulings, amid rising tensions between the judiciary and the coalition.