It is not possible, according to an internal Israeli reading, to wage a battle in defense of democracy and the rule of law inside Israel, and then ignore what is happening in the West Bank, where the erosion of law enforcement mechanisms and the decline in the independence of professional institutions have become part of a broader crisis that goes beyond the political dispute over the two-state solution.
In an opinion article published by reserve colonel and lawyer Pnina Sharvet Baruch, a prominent researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and head of the Dvora Forum, on the Israeli website N12, she considered that the battle over the democratic character of the state and the rule of law suffers from a clear “blind spot” represented by ignoring what is happening in the West Bank.
Sharvet Baruch pointed out that in 2023, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in defense of Israeli democracy, and protested against weakening the court, compromising the independence of legal advice, and concentrating a large amount of power in the hands of the political level.
The message at the time, according to the author, was clear: democracy is not only majority rule, but also requires the rule of law, professional and independent institutions, judicial oversight, and protection of rights.
However, according to her, this movement suffered from a prominent blind spot, as it mostly sought to save democracy inside Israel without dealing with what was happening in parallel in the West Bank, after the Palestinian issue was viewed as a separate political issue, perhaps important, but it could be postponed so as not to divide the protest camp.
Sharvet Baruch believes that this separation is no longer possible today, noting that recent years have witnessed a profound change in the governance systems in the West Bank.
Powers that had been in the hands of the army and civil administration for years were transferred, to a large extent, to civilian agencies directly subordinate to the political level, one of whose declared goals, according to the article, is to expand and consolidate Israeli settlement.
In parallel, the position of the Civil Administration, which used to play a central role in managing the lives of the Palestinian population and preserving their rights, has significantly declined, while the ability of professional bodies to present legal and administrative considerations in the face of political policies has diminished.
According to the article, law enforcement mechanisms have also weakened, while acts of violence carried out by Israelis against Palestinians have turned into a serious and continuing phenomenon, without being met, in most cases, with effective law enforcement.
Sharvet Baruch stressed that the issue is not related to individual failures of a policeman or soldier, but rather to a broader system, as the failure to properly investigate the files, not bringing violators to trial, establishing illegal settlement outposts or taking control of lands without an effective response from the state, leads to establishing a clear message on the ground that the law is applied to one group, while another group can assume that it will not be applied to them.
This comes, according to the author, at a time when Israel itself is witnessing a systematic struggle over the power of the “gatekeepers,” through attempts to weaken the status of legal advisors, the ongoing confrontation with the government’s judicial advisor, and steps aimed at changing the status and composition of the court, in addition to the struggle with the independence of professional bodies.
She saw that these paths are not completely identical to what is happening in the West Bank, but they are not separate from it either.
The party that sees legal consultation as an obstacle to the government’s policies, and judicial oversight as illegal interference by legal personnel in the decisions of elected officials, and seeks to replace professional opinion with loyalty to the minister’s policy, applies this view, according to the article, not only in the relationship between the government and the judicial system in Jerusalem, but more severely in the region where the state possesses enormous authoritarian power while public oversight over it is weaker, that is, in the West Bank.
Sharvet Baruch stressed that there is no dispute about the duty of the security authorities to confront Palestinian militants without compromise, and to protect Israeli citizens residing in the West Bank.
She also acknowledged that the political future of the region is deeply contested, as the establishment of a Palestinian state may be supported or rejected, or the belief that there is no currently practical political solution, but none of these disagreements, according to her, negate the necessity of imposing the rule of law.
She believed that a democratic state cannot accept a reality in which acts of violence against Palestinians are not met with effective law enforcement, or in which professional considerations are replaced by ideological considerations in the management of the region, or in which the law is applied to illegal construction in a discriminatory manner according to the identity of the person building it.
It also criticized a reality in which official bodies, whether by action or inaction, help push Palestinian residents away from places where they live legally.
The author touched on a deeper question related to the reality of Israel’s exercise for decades of broad governing powers in a region where Israelis and Palestinians live, subject to different legal frameworks, and enjoying very different levels of rights and protection from state authorities.
Even for those who see this reality as the result of an unresolved conflict and do not accept all the accusations directed against Israel in the international arena, Sharvet Baruch believes that the growing tension between this reality and the democratic values that Israel seeks to ascribe to itself cannot be ignored.
She pointed out that the 2023 protests realized well that democracy does not exist without “gatekeepers,” but large parts of the protest tried to create a comfortable separation based on defending democracy inside Israel and leaving the West Bank issue to political conflict at a later time.
But reality, according to her, proves that this equation is unsustainable.
She said that it is not possible to maintain a culture of the rule of law inside Israel, and a culture that contradicts it behind the Green Line, because the same institutions, the same government, and the same culture of governance operate in both places.
She added that when the message is sent that professionals should submit to the political echelon, when legal advice is treated as an enemy, and law enforcement becomes a selective exercise, erosion cannot be expected to stop at a convenient geographical point on the map.
Sharvet Baruch called on everyone who wants to defend Israel’s democratic character to broaden the angle of view, considering that the battle cannot be limited to protecting the independence of the court and the government’s judicial advisor.
According to them, it must also include the demand for true rule of law in the West Bank, through equal and firm enforcement against acts of violence and crimes committed by Israelis, maintaining the professional independence of the army and civil administration, and setting clear limits on the use of authoritarian force towards the Palestinian population.
She concluded that there is no need to agree on a two-state solution in order to agree on this principle, but rather, as she put it, it is sufficient to take seriously the idea that was at the heart of the protest: democratic governance is not only measured by who has power, but also by the limits set against its use, and these limits “do not end at the green line.”
