MK Bezalel Smotrich
MK Bezalel SmotrichAryeh Minkov

MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) on Wednesday said that the High Court’s decision to cancel the administrative detention of terrorist Mohammed Allan is a legitimate decision, though he admitted he didn’t like the ruling.

“I’m sorry that once again, I find myself swimming against the current of my colleagues on the right - who strongly condemn almost automatically any High Court decision - but this time, although I really do not like its outcome, this is a perfectly legitimate decision,” wrote Smotrich on Facebook.

“As someone who has serious reservations about judicial activism, I have to accept this decision by the High Court,” he continued. “This is exactly the role of the court in a democratic country. Not to overturn laws and not to interfere in the decisions of the Knesset and the government, but treat specific cases and to protect human rights when the court believes it's necessary.”

Smotrich added that it is possible to disagree with the compassion the court showed for Allan, saying, "You could say that if we were the judges there would be a different outcome and he would be allowed to die in order to make it clear that as a country we do not give in, but you cannot say that the decision that was made is fundamentally illegitimate.”

“The problem in this story,” he continued, “lies in the weakness of the political echelon, in the distorted morality of the Medical Association and in the hypocrisy of the Arab MKs and the extreme left organizations - who enlisted to help a heinous terrorist and submitted the petition to the High Court in his name. All these resulted in an entire country dealing with the terrorist for a few days and by that he has already received what he sought.”

“Allan is a terrorist and I really would not have been sorry if he had died of the hunger strike he decided to take. But once the defense establishment decided that it is not good for our interests that he die, we had to force feed him in accordance with the new law, passed by the Knesset,” said Smotrich.

“The weakness of the state and the hypocrisy of the Israeli Medical Association created the absurd reality in which he lost consciousness and suffered brain damage,” he added. “In this situation it is quite possible that administrative detention, which is in the first place a preventive detention, was no longer required. In his current condition he is probably not a threat. The Court did not revoke the detention altogether but only paused it as long as Allan’s condition is 'not dangerous'. As stated, this decision is certainly legitimate in a democratic country.”

Finally, Smotrich stressed, what's important to make sure is that if Allan wakes up and it turns out that he did not suffer irreversible brain damage, he ought to be arrested again, “and this time force fed immediately before an entire country is being dragged into another legal saga.”

Despite just 15 days ago rejecting a petition to end the terrorist's administrative detention, the court on Wednesday ended Allan’s detention, allowing for his immediate release if his hunger strike has caused irreversible brain damage according to surprising conditions set by the state - or in any case apparently setting his release for November in the event he recovers completely.

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) on Wednesday night strongly condemned the ruling.

"The decision to release the terrorist Allan stems first of all from the position of the (Israeli) Medical Association, led by Dr. (Leonid) Eidelman, not to treat hunger strikers until they lose consciousness and until there are concerns of irreversible damage," said Erdan.

"Throughout his (Allan's) hospitalization, Dr. Eidelman demanded from the doctors and threatened them not to act according to the law on rights of the sick, despite the decision of the hospitals' ethics committee," he said, noting on the refusal to implement the newly passed forced feeding law for hunger striking terrorists.

"The time has come for the Medical Association and its leader to honor the law instead of taking steps that in the end lead to the release of terrorists."