Riot at Justice Sohlberg’s home exposes dangerous double standard on Israeli rule of law - comment

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a broad spectrum of Israeli leadership, including the Justice Minister, Defense Minister, and judicial bodies, have condemned a riot that occurred at the home of Supreme Court Deputy President Noam Sohlberg. The article argues that such condemnations are hollow without decisive action to enforce court rulings and prosecute those who threaten public officials. It criticizes a perceived double standard where violence is condemned in one breath, only to be excused by explanations of perceived persecution in the next.

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The words are important. But they are not enough.

The author contends that leadership must choose between upholding the rule of law, where court decisions are binding and criminal acts have consequences, or allowing factions to selectively recognize laws and threaten officials. The piece highlights a statement from Shas and Degel HaTorah, which condemned violence but opened by expressing pain over the "persecution and trampling of Torah students by Supreme Court justices." This framing, the article asserts, turns the victim of the attack into an oppressor and the law into a tool of religious persecution.

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Leadership must now choose where it stands: in a law-abiding country, where court rulings are binding and criminal acts carry criminal consequences; or in a country where every sector, faction, and political camp decides for itself which laws it recognizes and which public officials it is permitted to threaten.

Justice Sohlberg is described as a devout and honest man dedicated to serving the state and the law. Friends and neighbors attest to his integrity, calling the attack a "desecration of Torah." The article concludes that the underlying issue is not Torah but a struggle for power, exemption, and a refusal to accept the state's laws when they conflict with religious or political convenience. The victims of this narrative, it argues, are primarily those directly harmed by the violence and the erosion of the rule of law.

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The days of speaking gently about lawbreaking have to end.