Settler violence condemned
TENS of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against controversial judicial reform proposals for a 26th consecutive day at the weekend.
The organisers of the Saturday demonstrations announced protests at 150 different locations across Israel. In Tel Aviv alone, about 130 000 people gathered. Overall, about 300 000 people protested across Israel.
In Tel Aviv, protesters attempted to block the main highway, but police restored regular traffic.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that the government would drop the most controversial part of the judicial reform designed to enable the parliament (Knesset) to override the rulings of the Supreme Court. He said that the government and the opposition had been unable to agree on basic provisions of the reform for months, which would possibly prompt the government to advance the legislation unilaterally.
The draft law is intended to shake up the judiciary in Israel. If adopted, it could curtail the Supreme Court’s power to review and strike down laws that it rules unconstitutional and give the government a greater say in the selection of judges.
The recent spate of settler attacks on Palestinian villages in the West Bank is deepening fissures in Israel’s right-wing government, with hardline ministers pushing back on calls by military and security chiefs for a crackdown on Jewish extremists.
In the attacks, carried out over several days in revenge for the killing of four Israeli settlers by Hamas gunmen, armed mobs marauded through villages, torching homes and cars, cutting power lines and firing weapons. At least one Palestinian civilian was killed, according to health officials, and dozens have been injured.
The split over how to respond to the violence is just the latest example of tensions pulling at Netanyahu’s fractious governing coalition as it struggles to remake the country’s judiciary and ease strains with the US, Europe and regional powers. It pits the country’s security establishment against far-right cabinet members, who say the rampages are an understandable reaction to Palestinian violence and reject characterising them as “Jewish terrorism.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader who heads the Religious Zionist Party, this week slammed Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for approving the summary detention of four settlers suspected of participating in attacks on the village of Luban a-Sharqia.
Israel regularly employs administrative detention to hold Palestinians without trial – more than 1000 were detained in March, according to the Israeli prison service. But in a tweet, Smotrich called use of that mechanism against settlers “both democratically and morally repugnant.”
A senior Israeli official said Gallant and other security officials had concluded that the risk posed by some settlers required the same approach they employ against suspected Palestinian terrorists.
“To hold four Israeli citizens without trial is very significant,” said the official. “Gallant has decided he’s going to use any tool at his disposal to fight this, and the most significant one is the administrative detention order.”
This official said the military applied the same criteria against the four Israeli men that they use against detained Palestinians – there was clear evidence that they posed a threat to civilian lives. The policy would continue despite criticism from Smotrich and others, the official said.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who, like Smotrich, has been questioned in the past by security agencies for involvement with antiArab terrorist groups, also condemned the detention of the four men and the criticism of rampaging settlers.
Israel’s top security chiefs have been unanimous in their condemnation of the recent settler violence, despite criticism from rights advocates that they have failed to protect vulnerable Palestinian communities.
Netanyahu’s coalition government owes its four-seat parliamentary majority to far-right nationalist parties – including Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power – that were once relegated to the fringes of Israeli politics.
Disagreements over West Bank policy have been a recurring theme. Smotrich, Ben Gvir and other hard-liners have pushed to hasten settlement construction and deploy tougher military tactics against Palestinians, even as Israeli diplomats have assured foreign governments that settlement activity would be restrained and security leaders have pushed to remove some illegal outposts.