On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a memorial ceremony for 16 Irgun members who were killed on board the Altalena, the ammunition and troop ship that was sunk upon the orders of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion while making its way to Israel during the War of Independence. Over this still-painful issue, Netanyahu has attempted to strike a delicate balance between empathy for the Irgun's commander (and later prime minister ) Menachem Begin, and finding a way to exculpate Ben-Gurion.

At last year's commemoration, Netanyahu had termed the incident a "tragedy," as "both sides ... embraced the principle of the government's authority, on both sides no one disputed the idea that the state could exist only provided it had one command, one army and one holder of weaponry."

This year, Netanyahu could not resist invoking the history of the Altalena to scold the residents of the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El, which is slated for demolition. Even if the residents felt aggrieved by an injustice perpetuated against them, he said, they should adopt the stoicism practiced by Menachem Begin, who kept Irgun members favoring retaliation in check, ruling out civil war at all costs. Even if a mistake had been made in the Beit El case (as with the Altalena ), Netanyahu declared, the residents were expected to bow to the rule of law and the authority of the government.

Netanyahu's logic is unconvincing. The prospective destruction of the Ulpana quarter does not serve the rule of law, but rather its manipulation by leftist NGOs abetted either by the connivance or negligence of the State Prosecutor's Office. If we are dealing with indisputable law, there is no need for an internal investigation (as ordered by the premier and the Knesset's State Control Committee ) to determine why the government's legal representatives raised a white flag in the face of Yesh Din's suit against the neighborhood.

And if the law is indeed clear-cut, how could Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein assure Netanyahu that the case would not set a precedent, because next time around the readily available legal arguments would be invoked? Netanyahu mistakenly ruled out the option of rectifying the State Prosecutor's Office's improper handling via Knesset legislation that would preserve both the rule of law and the Ulpana. In our system of government, the Knesset does not "detour" around the court: As the legislator, it takes the legal highway. Unless the bills it passes contradict existing Basic Laws, the court must give effect to Knesset legislation, even retroactive legislation.

It is difficult to see by what grounds the High Court might invalidate the proposed "Regulation Law," which is compatible with Israeli practice, Ottoman and Jordanian law, international precedent and even Talmudic law. Since the putative Arab owner (the district court has still not decided the ownership dispute ) would have effectively been winning the lottery by receiving munificent compensation for his otherwise unusable land (surrounded as it is by Jewish-owned houses ), how are his human rights being trampled?

The intimidating spins warning the Knesset not to exercise its powers as legislator - as Israeli leaders could subsequently find themselves in the defendants' dock at the International Criminal Court at the Hague - were particularly reprehensible. They were reminiscent of the tactics employed by Poland's communist leaders in attempting to reason with opponents of the regime in the 1980s. They warned the dissidents that an overthrow of the communist regime would trigger armed Soviet intervention, as had happened in earlier decades in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Poland was better off under more benevolent local communists, they argued, than under direct Soviet rule.

Supporters of the Knesset legislation were cautioned that Israel's Supreme Court similarly serves as Israel's body armor against external judicial intervention.

It appears utterly fantastic that by legislating what is quite acceptable in municipal and international law an Israeli leader would earn the status of a genocidal Rwandan or a Balkan war criminal. Yet, once the Hague hobgoblin had been let loose, everyone felt free to appropriate it. A municipal leader from southern Israel objected in a radio interview to the idea of moving the illegal Sudanese labor migrants from the Tel Aviv area to a tent city in his neighborhood. He threatened that if the government went ahead with the plan, he and his constituents would take it all the way to the Hague.

The real threat to governmental authority is posed by selective legal and human rights activists who seek to fetter government policy by lawfare and the imposition of unworkable restraints.

Netanyahu has failed to push back against this mentality and strategy, which constantly empowers the legal bureaucracy while enfeebling the elected government. He retreated from legislation regulating foreign funding of NGOs and reforming the judicial selection process as soon as the first backlash appeared in the press. I would be surprised if Netanyahu will back the draft legislation recently tabled by his protege MK Ofir Akunis, imposing stiff penalties on employers and facilitators of illegal migrants till it has become law. Netanyahu's track record suggests that he will order Akunis to withdraw his proposal once the criticism becomes too unbearable.

When Netanyahu demonstrates that he can sustain governmental authority against these powerful forces, he will have earned the right to be taken seriously at the Ulpana and elsewhere.

Dr. Amiel Ungar writes a monthly column in Haaretz English Edition.