Former prime minister Ehud Barak called Sunday for nonviolent civil disobedience after the government said it would not obey a High Court of Justice ruling on the Second Authority council, escalating Israel’s constitutional crisis.
“The only path left for Israeli citizens is nonviolent civil disobedience,” Barak said. “It should be led by the heads of the opposition, and if not by them, then by us, the people themselves.”
Former prime minister Ehud Barak
(Photo: Avi Moalem)
Barak said the government’s refusal to comply with the court ruling amounted to “a declaration of war on the democratic State of Israel” and violated the oath of office taken by the prime minister and his ministers.
“The government and its head have turned themselves into a clearly illegitimate government, unfit and unworthy to serve even one more day,” Barak said.
He warned that a government willing to reject a High Court ruling could also refuse to recognize the results of the next election.
“Only the people, in their masses, will be able to save us from collapse into the abyss of a dark, corrupt and leprous dictatorship whose end is anarchy and destruction,” he said.
Barak added that the responsibility for the price of nonviolent disobedience would lie with what he called “the government of bereavement and failure and the man who heads it.”