Police's lack of imposing coronavirus laws is not law enforcement - opinion
As a new Israeli, I’ve learned an important lesson about Israeli law and order. Laws can be subjective here, depending on how seriously the people want to keep them.
By YOSSI EITANA man carries his shopping bags and wears a face mask in a street in Ashkelon while Israel tightened a national stay-at-home policy following the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ashkelon, Israel March 20, 2020.(photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
I couldn’t believe my own ears. The laughing, loud voices and l’chaims sounded like a regular Shabbat morning kiddush.Of course, with the Health Ministry proclaiming the dangers of close contact and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forbidding people from travelling more than 100 meters from their homes, the kiddush had to be a figment of my imagination. Yet, as I walked out of my front door and looked down at my neighbor’s front lawn, I saw 20 of my neighbors gathered for a close-quartered kiddish the likes of which the coronavirus could only dream of attending.There’s a certain amount of culture shock that every immigrant experiences when they come to their new country. This applies to Anglos who move to Israel just as much as any immigrant anywhere in the world.While I can’t speak for all Anglos, a phenomena I’ve observed is that Anglos in Israel strictly keep the coronavirus restrictions set forth by the government while they watch slack-jawed as Israelis all around them socialize, as if the pandemic never came to Israel.The media made a big deal of Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman and Knesset member Avigdor Liberman all breaking social-distancing regulations. Israelis living in small towns know that their leaders aren’t the only ones breaking the law.All throughout Israel’s moshavim, yishuvim and kibbutzim, Israelis are leading their lives in a mostly normal fashion. Masks are rarely worn, the two-meter rule is often broken, and no one is concerned that COVID-19 might come to their town.The most shocking violations are the outdoor minyanim, or prayer quorums. Religious Jews commanded to save lives are willing to put themselves, their families and their neighbors at risk. They claim to keep the Health Ministry’s directives of spacing and numbers, but the minyanim in my neighborhood have more than 30 people attending, and most of them aren’t practicing social distancing at all.Couple this with kids playing in the parks and the large kiddush celebrations, and it’s amazing the authorities haven’t arrested our entire town.That brings us to the most surprising hypocrisy of this entire coronavirus episode. Instead of enforcing the law, enforcement personnel and police officers regularly drive our streets, witness the violations and don’t say anything at all.While I see constant headlines about tickets and fines being given in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, no one in our town has been told to even stop their violations, let alone been ticketed. One neighbor even said to me, “If what we were doing was so bad, the police would’ve given us tickets. They didn’t even slow down when they passed us outside.”
I can’t blame the police entirely though. In testimony to the United States Senate, Robert Kennedy said, “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.”Our community and many like ours haven’t been taking the Health Ministry’s regulations seriously. They don’t think the threat is real, and they don’t want to be told to curtail their social lives. The last thing they expect from the police is to enforce laws they don’t think are sensible.I don’t know where the coronavirus is headed or what lessons we’ll take from our time with social distancing. One thing is certain: an unenforced law is not a law at all.As a new Israeli, I’ve learned an important lesson about Israeli law and order. Laws can be subjective here, depending on how seriously the people want to keep them. My neighbors didn’t teach me this principle; the Israel Police, through its dereliction of duty, taught it to me.
