President Herzog says disobeying High Court rulings is ‘a red line,’ hours after government declares it will do so

President Isaac Herzog says disobeying High Court rulings is “a red line.”

“Statements calling for noncompliance with [High Court] rulings strike at the heart of the nation’s unity,” he writes on X. “I have made this clear before, and I will repeat it again and again: Refusing to comply with a court ruling is a red line that must not be crossed under any circumstances.”

Herzog issues the statement hours after, for the first time in Israel’s history, the government openly declared that it will not respect a High Court of Justice ruling, escalating its feud with the judiciary to constitutional crisis levels.

In a declaration issued by the cabinet, the government vowed not to respect the High Court’s decision in June to enable the Council of the Second Authority commercial broadcasting regulatory body to resume operations despite lacking a two-thirds quorum of members.