Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been trying to save their democracy for seven months: they are demonstrating, including this week and Saturday evening. But most of them are not targeting the military occupation of the Palestinian territories with their protests – even though this occupation is their country’s longest running and most undemocratic policy. “What’s the connection?” I hear her ask. Uncomprehending and irritated, they point their fingers at those who are campaigning against occupation policies.
The occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, is seen by the Israeli mainstream as an unfortunate but necessary evil in a life-or-death conflict. For decades, Israelis have managed to convince themselves of an illusion: that the military regime in charge of controlling Palestinians in the West Bank has nothing to do with their country’s political system. This regime is considered to be a kind of independently existing foreign body. For a long time, this conviction also served to signal to outsiders: the occupation is a temporary state.
Nowadays this distinction is blurred. The “Green Line,” the ceasefire line that once separated the Israeli heartland from the territory conquered in 1967, has lost its meaning. A Palestinian state was supposed to emerge on the territory of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Instead, today we see a blurring between Israel’s internationally recognized borders and apparent democracy on the one hand – and military rule over the Palestinians and hundreds of Jewish settlements in the West Bank on the other.
The current ultra-nationalist government wants to cement Israel’s permanent control of the West Bank. They don’t even try to give the appearance of democracy. Jewish Israelis live in the West Bank in settlements erected in violation of international law as full and free citizens of Israel. Their Palestinian neighbors are not granted any rights or political representation. The system is based on the superiority of one group and oppression of the other.
In February, the government formalized this unjust system in a dry and technocratic deal. The military should no longer be responsible for the Palestinian civil administration in the West Bank, as was previously the case, but the Ministry of Defence. A ministerial post was created specifically for this purpose.
The Israeli civil administration in the occupied territories has long been considered the powerful executive arm of occupation policy. But their existence was always, at least formally, a temporary existence because the military ultimately bore responsibility. With the new agreement, many tasks of civil administration in the occupied territories fall under the normal bureaucratic responsibility of the Israeli state apparatus.
In order to create the ministerial post, an Israeli constitution had to be changed. In fact, this change means: The occupation is no longer a temporary phenomenon. Rather, it becomes an integral part of Israel’s fundamental laws, which have quasi-constitutional status. This move formalizes the annexation of the West Bank, territory won through hostilities in 1967 – a violation of the UN Charter and a slap in the face to the international community.
The new ministerial post has now also been taken over by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party, known throughout the country as a fanatic and racist who hates Palestinians. Now he can decide how parts of the West Bank are used. He can prevent any kind of development on the Palestinian side and manages the budget for the settlements. Its task is to further intensify discrimination against Palestinians in the use of resources such as water and in the issuing of building permits.
The pace of annexation has accelerated since February. In March, the Knesset passed legislation allowing settlers to return to four settlements that had been declared illegal and vacated nearly two decades ago. In June, the cabinet decided to ease bureaucratic hurdles for approving settlements. Smotrich was again responsible for this. By the middle of this year, the government had approved more apartments or houses in the settlements than any year since 2012, when the organization Peace Now began documenting them – 13,000 so far. There are also 8,000 new units in annexed East Jerusalem.
All this is not surprising. In the past decade, right-wing nationalist parties have always made their intentions clear, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly reiterated his iron resistance to a Palestinian state.
But the Israeli notion of a military occupation separate from the government has always been misleading: in Israel, the state controls the armed forces, which in turn control the Palestinians. Israel’s civil institutions and government have always been guilty of complicity.
As early as 1967, a law was passed that placed Israeli citizens in the occupied territories under Israeli civil law, while subjecting the Palestinian population to martial law and thus to military courts. But the Supreme Court soon found itself dealing with cases involving the lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories—because it is impossible to separate one from the other. Almost all other ministries also had a say in the everyday lives of Palestinians: in building houses and roads, in health care, in taxes and in economic policy. The bureaucracy that maintains occupation policies belongs to the state and cannot be isolated from it.
Over time, the goal became increasingly clear: to establish permanent Israeli control over as much territory as possible. Israel annexed East Jerusalem de facto as early as 1967, formalized the step in 1980 in a Basic Law, annexed the Golan Heights 198, continued to expand its influence over the West Bank over the years and also retained external control over the Gaza Strip. The current government’s policy of annexation is not a revolution, but the culmination of a “point of no return”.
However, the current government is taking steps in yet another and ominous direction: Recent policy decisions, statements by politicians, out-of-control settler violence, and the behavior of the army can be read as if there was intent to expel the Palestinians. Notable Israeli citizens are warning of a second Nakba: a disaster like the 1948 war, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled.
One minister said publicly that “the job of 1948 must be finished.” He wanted to “take Hawara, a small Palestinian town in the West Bank, off the map” in revenge for the attacks on Israeli civilians. Settlers from extremist circles are very receptive to these kinds of statements. According to the UN, there were already more attacks by settlers on Palestinians in 2023 than in all of 2021. Palestinians also killed Israelis; by July 2023 as many civilians had been killed as in all of 2022.
In response, Israel’s right-wing attempts to make Palestinian life unbearable: In the so-called Area C, which is completely controlled by Israel and includes 60 percent of the West Bank, Israel is destroying villages, schools, wells and parks. Just last November and this May, two schools financed by European taxpayers with EU money were demolished.
The current government is introducing legislation that would end funding for Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem. Supposedly to prevent them from spreading “hate speech and terror” through their curriculum – which is not evident in these schools. The real aim behind this: to make life impossible for Palestinian families in Jerusalem so that they leave the city. So, Jewish Israelis are deluding themselves into thinking that all of this has nothing to do with their state and democracy, which they claim to support.
The international community, Europe and also Germany criticize the occupation, but actually tolerate it. European authorities must beg for compensation if Israel destroys infrastructure funded by European funds. The policies of the current Israeli government are helping everyone to finally understand that military occupation has long since turned into annexation. The annexation could soon turn into expulsion – and Israel’s democracy could be on the brink of collapse.
Translation: Marina Klimchuk
