Malicious Avoidance of Legal Procedures
In October 2024, the Knesset passed a law to deport terrorists' families, yet it remains unimplemented. A journalistic investigation reveals that the process is being stalled from within the Attorney General's office.
In October 2024, the Knesset plenum approved by a majority of 61 supporters against 41 opponents the law for the deportation of terrorists' families. The session chairman could not silence the stormy applause of the MKs in the plenum on the occasion of the enactment of a law "whose purpose is real deterrence - so that every terrorist knows that he is signing not only his own sentence, but also the sentence of his relatives." From the guest gallery, cheers were also heard from representatives of bereaved families and terror victims who were partners in the initiative. They hoped that the law would reduce the number of new members in their organizations.
The legislative process lasted over six years. Studies for and against were presented, and public support and criticism were heard. The text of the law was changed repeatedly until it was finalized. After the legislation, no petition was filed to cancel it and no judge rushed to freeze it. And yet, to this day, it has not been implemented even once.
Netael Bendele and Amir Ettinger revealed in the "Musaf LeShabbat" of "Yedioth Ahronoth" how the law was "killed with a kiss," and specifically by those entrusted to keep it alive. It was not the responsible minister who opposed and refused to exercise his authority. It was not the executive body that encountered difficulties in its implementation, and it was not a judge who canceled it. It was Adv. Gil Limon, the Deputy Attorney General, who used his authority to stall it.
Bendele and Ettinger reveal how Limon and those under him carry this out—protocol after protocol—from the stage where it is promised that "we will issue instructions on how to proceed from here" to when they retreat to checking "gradually." The exposure reveals that this is a de facto cancellation. The Deputy Attorney General did not petition the Supreme Court himself, did not ensure there would be a public petitioner whose position he could support, and did not bother to detail in a reasoned opinion the problems in its implementation. He settled for boilerplate phrasing.
This is the heart of the investigation: the difference between a discussion on the constitutionality of a law in the Supreme Court and a discussion in the Attorney General's office. The first is public—there is an identified petitioner, relevant respondents, reasoned arguments, and transparent orders that the public can criticize and the Knesset can change. The discussion in the Attorney General's office is the exact opposite: there is no transparency, no public discussion, and no possibility to correct because no one knows. There are only internal protocols that the public learned about thanks to intensive journalistic exposure.
The result is power without accountability. This is the same Attorney General's office that at that very same time sharply attacked the IDF and the police for dragging their feet in enforcing the Security Service Law regarding Haredi deserters. There, gradualness and caution are a sin; here, they are worthy measures. This contrast teaches that this is not a professional characteristic of that office's work but a malicious avoidance of legal procedures that stems from an ideological position. This is intolerable. When judicial and public mechanisms are disabled, it is possible to kill even a law that arose with such great spirit, easily and in a quiet silence.
