[You simply cannot call a state democratic that legalizes
privileges for Jews and denies equality and right to
self-determination for the other half of the population under its
control – the Palestinians ]
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FOR PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL’S ‘FIGHT TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY’ IS
BITTERLY SURREAL  
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George Bisharat and Jamil Dakwar
March 21, 2023
Haaretz
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_ You simply cannot call a state 'democratic' that legalizes
privileges for Jews and denies equality and right to
self-determination for the other half of the population under its
control – the Palestinians _

A protester waves a 'bloodied' Israeli flag during a pro-democracy
protest in Herzliya, on Saturday., Credit: Shir Torem

 

To any Palestinian, the upheaval within Israel and among Western
commentators over threats to Israel’s democracy by its new governing
coalition is surreal.

Palestinians know that Israel has only ever been a democracy for its
Jewish citizens, and never for us. What we are witnessing today is an
internal Israeli Jewish struggle over who will administer an apartheid
regime over the Palestinians, not a genuine fight for democracy for
all.

There’s no doubt the latest governing coalition, with its openly
bigoted ministers and plans to weaken the Israeli judiciary, is far
worse than its predecessors. Yet since Israel’s founding, its legal
system has regularly approved laws and policies enforcing Jewish
supremacy.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s statement this week that
there was “no such thing as Palestinians
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there’s no such thing as Palestinian people,” though clearly
racist, is fully consistent with Israeli laws and policies, like the
2018 Basic Law: Israel — The Nation State of the Jewish People,
which pointedly excludes the right to equality for all the country’s
citizens.

The Supreme Court has rarely seen a seizure of Palestinian land it
didn’t like. While it expanded legal standing to hear cases of
Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, it has
typically approved Israel’s land seizures.

Once, in 1979, it struck down one legal justification for a Jewish
settlement. In response, the military administration that has ruled
over occupied West Bank Palestinians for nearly 56 years simply
switched legal tactics, and settlement activity resumed with barely a
hiccup. And while in 2004 the International Court of Justice found the
construction of sections of Israel’s separation wall built on
Palestinian land unlawful, the Supreme Court authorized
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major segment of it.

The Court has also, in effect, given its blessing to state sanctioned
violence and tools of repression against Palestinians. In 1999, it
barred several abusive interrogation techniques that amount to torture
– but did not absolutely ban torture itself.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has approved targeted killings (with some
constraints), the demolition of family homes as collective punishment,
imprisonment without trial based on secret evidence, forced removal
and deportations as well as bans on political expression and freedom
of movement.

[The separation barrier, as seen from Abu Dis in the West Bank, in
September.]

The separation barrier, as seen from Abu Dis in the West Bank, in
September.Credit: Emil Salman

At any time now, the Israeli army plans to bulldoze two Palestinian
villages in the West Bank, Masafer Yatta
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Khan al-Ahmar. The Court ruled the army could use the land for
military training, despite warnings from the International Criminal
Court prosecutor that “extensive destruction of property, without
military necessity and population transfers, in an occupied territory
constitute war crimes.”

Overnight, more than 1,000 residents of Masafer Yatta will be made
homeless. 180 residents of Khan al-Ahmar
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suffer the same fate. Destroying the two villages will create a
dangerous precedent, with catastrophic implications for dozens of
similarly situated Palestinian communities.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also consistently upheld laws that
discriminate against Palestinian citizens, approving racist
legislative measures banning Palestinian family unification
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empowering Jewish community councils to disapprove Palestinian
residency applications under the pretext of “social
unsuitability”—thus greenlighting the housing segregation that is
typical of Israel’s smaller communities.

An independent Israeli judiciary? Maybe, if you’re Jewish. Today,
some Supreme Court judges, such as Noam Sohlberg and David Mintz, live
in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. They, like
other Israeli settlers, use Jewish-only roads to speed along, while
Palestinians use inferior roads and get herded through military
checkpoints like cattle through a stockyard. Many other judges were
formerly prosecutors or otherwise served the state, and now
systemically uphold oppressive policies that violate international
human rights and humanitarian law.

True, the Supreme Court has had one Palestinian Arab judge since 2004.
To most Palestinian citizens of Israel, however, this is merely
tokenism supporting the illusion that we enjoy equal citizenship.

[Palestinian women gather beside the rubble of their house that was
demolished by Israeli authorities at Khirbet Ma'in in the area of
Masafer Yatta, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, in January.]

Palestinian women gather beside the rubble of their house that was
demolished by Israeli authorities at Khirbet Ma'in in the area of
Masafer Yatta, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, in
January.Credit: Majdi Mohammed /AP

Israel and its supporters in the West have labored to construct the
myth of a Jewish democracy. But “Jewish and democratic state” is a
contradiction in terms, just as “Christian democracy” is in
describing the United States. You simply cannot call a state
“democratic” that legalizes privileges for Jews and denies
equality and right to self-determination for the other half of the
population under its control.

Palestinians have never accepted, and will never accept, that Jewish
people should have superior rights over us – particularly not in our
own homeland – regardless of the decades of illegal policies and
practices that the 2018 Basic Law attempts to legitimize.

Nor will we ever stop fighting for freedom or opposing Israeli theft
of our lands through use of military force and legal machinations. We
will continually resist by all means available under international law
what an emerging consensus of major local and international human
rights organizations sees as apartheid and Jewish supremacy laws from
the river to the sea.

While we applaud newly awakened concerns over Israel’s increasingly
illiberal and anti-democratic policies, blocking Netanyahu’s assault
on the judiciary will not end the decades long subjugation of
Palestinians. This explains the indifference and lack of participation
of Palestinian citizens in the Israeli Jewish-led massive protest
movement. Without centering equality and human rights for all, the
call to protect Israeli democracy will remain exclusionary and hollow.

A small, but encouraging sign is the growing group of Jewish Israelis
who gather together at the weekly mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv
against the government holding signs like “Democracy and Occupation
Cannot Coexist.” They are right, but do not go far enough.

Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews are destined to live together in
the same land. Our shared future will become more just, secure, and
peaceful when Palestinian rights and lives are valued as much as
Jewish ones. Ending occupation is a start, but full democratization
will end only when the structures of Jewish supremacy in Israel are
also thoroughly dismantled. We are worthy to be counted as human
beings entitled to full equality and democratic rights, not as
colonized subjects.

_George Bisharat is the Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Emeritus
Professor of Law at the University of California School of Law, San
Francisco._

_Jamil Dakwar is the Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program, and
former senior lawyer with Adalah. He is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter
College and New York University. This piece is submitted in his
personal capacity and not as an ACLU staff member._

* Israel
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* anti-government protests
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* Palestinian rights
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* israeli-palestinian conflict
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