Israel’s Schmittian approach

Why do powerful people seem to get away with things others never could? Why do leaders treat laws as suggestions while ordinary citizens face consequences for the smallest violations? Almost everyone has seen or heard of a well-connected figure evading accountability, receiving a symbolic slap on the wrist for a crime that would send anyone else to jail. Lebanon’s 2019 liquidity crisis offered a clear example: while ordinary citizens were barred from accessing their own savings, politicians and the well-connected quietly transferred millions abroad, deepening the collapse.

Individuals like this are found all around the world, for it would seem that irrespective of country, race, or creed, one conclusion is repeatedly drawn: the more powerful an individual is, the less likely they are to be constrained by the law. Just as this inequality appears in everyday life, so can it be found in international politics. And in this realm, few have explained this dynamic more sharply than the German political theorist Carl Schmitt, who famously put it: Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

At first glance, Schmitt’s statement may sound abstract or like academic jargon. Yet it captures something people recognize instinctively: real power lies not only in applying the rules, but in deciding when the rules no longer apply, what Schmitt calls the exception.

For Schmitt, sovereignty is not a legal title, a president, parliament, or any institution named in a constitution. The sovereign is whoever has the authority to declare that the normal legal order is either maintained or suspended. This suspension is the moment when power steps outside of law yet remains legitimate, because it claims that breaking the rules is necessary to preserve the political community.

The exception matters because it exposes what supports every legal order. In normal times, laws appear stable and neutral. But in moments of crisis, their force depends entirely on a decision, the sovereign’s decision. Stability comes not from the law itself, but from an authority strong enough to enforce it.

Put simply: the sovereign can operate outside the law because they decide when and to whom the law applies. And for a concrete real-world illustration of this dynamic, one need only look at the current situation in the Middle East, particularly the State of Israel.

From the state’s founding onward, leaders such as David Ben-Gurion described Israel’s political condition in explicitly existential terms, portraying the country as living under siege. This rhetoric persists in contemporary Israeli politics. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu frequently invokes “existential threats,” from nuclear annihilation to massive missile attacks, fostering a climate in which ordinary legal and institutional limits are portrayed as inadequate for national survival. In Schmittian terms, this narrative helps justify the claim that Israel must retain the authority to set aside normal rules whenever it deems it necessary.

This climate of permanent existential vigilance translated directly into Israel’s political behavior. Its security doctrine is built precisely on the premise that threats must be addressed pre-emptively and independently, whether or not international bodies share its assessments. A clear illustration came in 2007, when Israel unilaterally struck Syria’s Al-Kibar nuclear reactor, presenting the operation as an unavoidable act of self-preservation.

The same pattern appears in Israel’s approach to international law. It selectively applies UN resolutions, enforcing those that align with its interests while contesting or disregarding those it views as harmful. U.N. Resolution 497, which declared Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights “null and void,” is a notable example. Despite the resolution, Israel has maintained full administrative control over the Golan and strengthened its position there, particularly after the Syrian state lost authority over the area during the civil war.

Israel’s capacity to define and enforce its own interpretation of necessity is strengthened by the backing of major powers, especially the United States. Great-power support acts as a buffer against international pressure and reduces the likelihood of meaningful enforcement when Israel operates outside formal legal constraints. That buffer widens the scope of Israel’s freedom of action, allowing it to determine for itself what constitutes a threat and how that threat must be addressed. 

If Israel operates as a Schmittian sovereign, Lebanon occupies the opposite position: a state stripped of the ability to define its own exceptions. The primary reason is internal. For decades, Lebanon has lacked the monopoly on force that sovereignty requires. Hezbollah’s military power eclipses that of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and its independent decision-making means the state neither authorizes nor controls actions that can trigger war. In practical terms, Lebanon cannot determine when danger rises to the level of an emergency or when the normal legal order should be suspended; that authority is held by a non-state actor operating both within and beyond the state.

Externally, Lebanon then absorbs the full weight of Israel’s unilateral decisions. Whether through border strikes, retaliatory campaigns, or escalatory responses, the Lebanese state does not possess the capacity to prevent or contain the consequences of actions taken by others. In Schmittian language, Israel decides the external exception, while Hezbollah decides the internal one. Lebanon is left in the untenable position of enduring the results of decisions it neither initiates nor formally endorses.

The result is a state caught between competing sovereignties. With no actor capable of enforcing a unified decision on necessity, Lebanon cannot determine when the rules apply, when they should be suspended, or how emergencies should be interpreted. It becomes, in effect, a political entity without the core attribute of sovereignty: the authority to decide. In a region where power is defined by the ability to declare exceptions, Lebanon is forced to live inside the exceptions declared by others.

In the end, Schmitt’s insight reveals a simple truth: power is measured not by who follows the rules, but by who can suspend them. Some actors in international politics claim the authority to define emergencies, while others are forced to live within the boundaries set by those decisions. As long as this imbalance persists, the global order will remain shaped less by law and more by the unequal distribution of power itself.