Articles
For the past several months, Israel has been beset by massive protests by thousands of Israeli citizens against the judicial reforms initiated by the right-religious coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The present government is the most right-wing government that Israel has had in its history since its establishment in 1948. On July 24, Israel’s governing coalition passed a portion of these reforms in the Knesset that would curtail the Supreme Court’s oversight powers over government decisions. In March, Netanyahu pulled back from implementing these judicial reforms because of strong domestic opposition, including threats of economic losses and conscientious objection to military service. The legislation that was recently passed abolishes the “reasonable doctrine” which the Supreme Court has used to assess key government decisions and ministerial appointments. This doctrine has worked as a critical judicial check on executive decisions. The court could examine and determine whether a government decision or a ministerial appointment is sensible and fair and nullify it if needed. It is also used to ensure that the resources of the state are used efficiently for the benefit of its citizens. Abolishing the reasonability doctrine is just one of the several judicial initiatives that Netanyahu’s government has planned to curtail the powers that the judiciary has over government decisions.
These attempts have been massively resisted by thousands of liberal Israelis who believe that the secular nature of the Israeli state is being obliterated by the religious right and will eventually weaken Israel’s democracy, turning it into a Jewish religious theocracy. But what the majority of protestors are not willing to accept is that the increasing power of the right-wing parties in Israel is connected to the Israeli policy of clamping down on Palestinians and expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A major agenda of the religious right parties in Israel that are part of the coalition government led by Netanyahu’s Likud party is the annexation of the West Bank and providing permission for the construction of more Jewish settlements in the West Bank. While the Israeli judicial system has not prevented the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it has served to delay the process and is also likely to be an obstacle to the complete expulsion of Palestinians and the annexation of this territory. This is one of the reasons why one of the goals of the Israeli right-wing parties is the curtailment of the powers of the judiciary.
This also means that the crisis in Israeli domestic politics is also connected to the second Israeli crisis of increasing instances of more violent clashes with Palestinian militant groups in the northern West Bank, especially in cities like Jenin and Nablus. A younger generation of Palestinians is frustrated with their older leaders in the Palestinian Authority (PA), as the latter is unable to prevent the increasing encroachment of Palestinian land by the Israeli state. Netanyahu’s government, which came to power at the end of 2022, gave permission for 13,000 new housing units in West Bank Jewish settlements, which is the highest number of permissions provided in many years. This means that the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute has become almost impossible. But the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council and International Court of Justice have all stated that Jewish settlements in the West Bank violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which makes it improbable that they would ever obtain international legal acceptance. Besides the settlements, there are also illegal settlement outposts that have been established without the authorization of the Israeli government. With the right-wing Israeli government in power, settler militias under Israeli military cover are also increasing attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
In response to these developments, younger Palestinians in the northern West Bank have formed small armed militias like the Lion’s Den group in Nablus and have been targeting Israelis living in the settlements since early 2022. The Lion’s Den includes young disenchanted members of Fatah, the most powerful organisation within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which controls the PA. But it also includes members of Palestinian Islamist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who are opposed to Fatah. These groups also fund the Lion’s Den to create splits within Fatah. In response to these attacks, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had been conducting daily night raids within Palestinian towns in the West Bank, which increased in intensity until they became the most sustained military operation there since the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the 2000s. These incursions culminated in the massive raid on the Jenin refugee camp in Jenin city in early July, which included the most intensive airstrikes on the West Bank in two decades. The raid resulted in almost 3,000 of the camp’s roughly 17,000 residents seeking shelter in schools and other public buildings.
Jenin, which was the stronghold of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has in the past two years become a hub for a new generation of militants who do not answer to the established militant groups. The PA has abdicated control over the refugee camp in Jenin, which is far away from its headquarters in Ramallah, in the central West Bank, close to East Jerusalem. It is not just the West Bank that is throwing up challenges for Israel. In early May, the Islamic Jihad fired rockets at southern Israel in response to the death of one of its leaders, who died while on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison. Israel responded by conducting airstrikes and killing some leaders of the organisation. Since November 2019, four of the last five conflicts that Israel has had with the Gaza Strip territory have been with Islamic Jihad, which mostly involved the latter firing rockets into Israeli territory. This is in addition to the conflict that Israel had with Hamas in May 2021. This shows that Israel is not entirely capable of deterring the Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip. Israeli political ideologies and policies that are being used to subjugate the Palestinians are now threatening the very essence of Israel’s democracy. Only a long-term peace agreement with the Palestinians can preserve what is left of Israel’s democracy.
Views expressed by the author are personal and need not reflect or represent the views of the Centre for Public Policy Research.
Dr Shelly Johny is Senior Fellow (West Asian & Security Studies) with Centre for Public Policy Research
