A radical anti-Zionist Israeli arrested, refuses to recognize the court

Radical anti-Zionist activist Jonathan Pollak was arrested by police on Monday, he also published an opinion piece some say supports violence against the state.

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Jonathan Pollak after his assault in Tel Aviv (photo credit: Courtesy)
Jonathan Pollak after his assault in Tel Aviv
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Radical anti-Zionist activist Jonathan Pollak, who was beaten last year in an allegedly politically motivated assault, was arrested on Monday by police for his refusal to show up in court.
Pollak, who is one of the founders of Anarchists Against the Wall and is a BDS supporter, refuses to recognize the authority of the state. Following his assault in July 2019 he told the Jerusalem Post he would not file a complaint to the police due to his anti-authoritarian views. 
On Monday he was arrested outside the Haaretz office in Tel Aviv, he works for the newspaper as a graphic designer, for his ongoing refusal to attend court procedures against him.
Pollak is facing a legal lawsuit by the Ad Kan NGO, which is a right-leaning group focused on investigating the work done by radical left-wing groups. Ad Kan argued that Pollak took part in West Bank protests against the security fence and that during these protests, IDF soldiers and police officers were assaulted.
The December 2018 lawsuit, reported Sicha Mekomit, is not that Pollak himself attacked members of the security force but that his presence encouraged the assault.
Pollak refused to attend the court procedures as he does not recognize the authority of the court, from his point of view, the entire state apparatus is tainted due to what he views as the illegitimate occupation of the Palestinian people.
Haaaretz published an opinion by Pollak on Tuesday in which he argued that Jewish people in Israel must “join the children of the Molotov Cocktails” in their fight against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The line had been changed online after Ad Kan pointed out that it is effectively, from their point of view, a call to use violence against Israelis which is an offense under Israeli law.
In response, Haaretz owner Amos Schocken argued that former prime minister Ehud Barak said in 1998 that, had he been a Palestinian, he might have joined a resistance movement, Hakol HaYehudi reported on Tuesday.
Pollak had repeatedly said that whatever discomforts he is enduring, the fate of Palestinians in the region are far worse.
It is unclear at this point how the legal case will develop as Pollak remains under arrest due to his refusal to pay any bail.
Broadly speaking, courts do not require the people facing them to acknowledge their authority in any legal or moral sense to function, provided these people had not been proven insane and are able to follow what’s going on.
American thinker Henry David Thoreau penned ‘On Civil Disobedience’ in 1849 after he refused to pay a tax meant to fund the Mexican-American War. Thoreau chose to serve time in prison and was eventually released after a friend of his paid the tax for him. Thoreau also objected to slavery and argued that citizens have the duty and responsibility to object to gross injustices in their societies, even those committed by the government.
 
   
    


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