A few days ago, the constitutional revolution was completed, but no, not in Israel. Few were aware of it, but the Ben-Gvir-Smotrich-Netanyahu government has conspired to carry out two coups – one in Israel and the other in the West Bank.
The first is aimed at eliminating the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary and creating a dictatorship in Israel; the second seeks to annex the West Bank and perpetuate Jewish supremacy as a guiding principle there. In order to prevent the first from happening, hundreds of thousands of Israelis went to the streets. But no one did the same to stop the second – because what's wrong with some more Jewish supremacy?
The regime revolution in the West Bank is being conducted in accordance with the commitments Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave to Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich as part of the coalition agreement. Its essence is the transfer of all the governing powers in the West Bank, except those directly relating to security, from the army to an apparatus headed by Smotrich himself.
At the end of May, it happened. Quietly, without any ceremonies or press announcements, Yehuda Fuchs, the head of the army's Central Command (and the commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank), signed an order creating a new position in the army's Civil Administration, "deputy head for civilian affairs" and the Civil Administration's head signed a document delegating powers to the holder of the new office.
But the "deputy" is in fact a civilian appointed by Smotrich and is in no way a deputy because he is not subordinate to the head of the Civil Administration. He needs no approval for his actions, is not required to consult with or report to him. He is subordinate alone to Smotrich.
The order and the letter of delegation of powers transferred most – in fact almost all – of the powers held by the head of the Civil Administration to the new deputy. Land management, planning and construction, enforcement against unpermitted construction, supervision and management of local authorities, professional licensing, trade and economy, management of nature reserves and archaeological sites.
Smotrich carried out an administrative enema (excuse the image) on the head of the Civil Administration, emptying him of all its powers, and transferring them to Smotrich himself via the deputy he himself has appointed.
If we describe things in a pictorial way: Since the order was signed, an officer has been wandering around the division's headquarters in Beit El boasting the title "head of the Civil Administration," but given the changes, he is effectively unemployed and can devote his time to organizing cultural and leisure activities for his subordinates. Someone should tell him that he may be a "head," but this head has no body.
However, transferring authority from an officer who is subordinate to the IDF commander in the West Bank to a civilian who is subordinate to the outpost Smotrich has established in the defense ministry has significance that far transcends issues such as work shifts and schedules. This is a dramatic change in the governing apparatus of the occupied territory, from one managed by a military administration, subject to international law which requires that it look after the occupied population, to a territory directly managed by civilian administration officials and Israeli publicly-elected officials, whose loyalty and duty are by definition given to Israeli citizens in general, and to Israeli citizens living in this occupied territory in particular. In order to understand how dramatic this change is, one should realize what international law was trying to achieve when it determined that occupied territory should be managed by a military government.
International law regulates a state of occupation as a temporary management of the territory by the occupier, and it categorically prohibits its unilateral annexation. This is not just another prohibition, but a key principle meant to cement the principle which precludes the use of force in international relations except in self-defense. If it is clear sovereignty cannot be acquired by force, there will be less motivation for embarking on a war of aggression. In other words, this prohibition on unilateral annexation of an occupied territory principle is at the core of the international rule-based order established after World War II, that in its heart lies the desire to eradicate wars. The purpose of determining that an occupied territory will be managed by a temporary military administration, and not directly by the occupying government, was to create a buffer between the citizens of the occupying country, who are its sovereign, and the ruling apparatus in the occupied territory.
This order is based on the understanding that the military is less committed to political considerations, whereas the ministries of an elected government are by definition committed to pursue them. The transfer of administrative powers to public servants of the occupying government and to its elected officials creates a direct rule by the occupiers' citizens over the occupied territory, thereby expanding the occupiers' sovereignty into the occupied territory. In other words: annexation. This is what Smotrich has succeeded in doing. He has completely removed the army (including military legal counseling) from the decision-making process regarding anything not directly related to security in the West Bank, in practice imposing Israeli sovereignty over the area.
And this will have disastrous implications for the rights of Palestinians. The few restrictions the army has somehow placed on the dispossession and violation of Palestinian rights will now be removed. Members of the Regavim NGO, the Kohelet Forum and the Honenu organization, whom Smotrich has appointed to all the relevant posts in the new civil administration of the West Bank, mainly as legal advisers, will remove the remaining restrictions. They will pounce on the proverbial poor man's [Palestinian] sheep, slaughtering it, tearing off its meat and sucking its marrow. It's already happening. New settlements will be erected; new neighborhoods will be built at a rate we haven't seen yet; large swathes of land will be allocated to violent Israelis in order to set up farms on them; Palestinian structures built without permits will be demolished at a dizzying pace, while illegal construction by settlers will be legalized. Fearless and shameless apartheid. Apartheid as a work plan.
The great shame lies in the fact that no one has stood up to object, not in Israel nor around the world. The same world that imposed heavy sanctions on Russia when it annexed in criminal fashion the Crimean Peninsula, and later territory it had conquered after invading Ukraine, has gone silent, not sounding a peep when it comes to Israel. Indeed, the world uses a different yardstick when it comes to Israel. But in contrast to the prattle of Israel's public diplomacy, this is positive discrimination, exempting Israel from the law. The only thing the annexationist criminals must be saying to themselves now is: why did we wait for 57 years? It's so easy.
The writer, a human rights lawyer, appealed this week on behalf of Yesh Din and ACRI to the defense minister and IDF commander in the West Bank, demanding the revocation of the order noted in this article.
