One of the pillars of a liberal democracy is equality under the law. Though there are breaches of the law in Israel on both sides of the political spectrum – government and opposition – attempts by various spokesmen, speaking on behalf of the government, to convince public opinion that both sides are equally to blame for breaches of the law and that both sides are treated equally by the law enforcement institutions are simply not based on the facts.
For the last year or two, there has been a gradual escalation in acts of violence, which large sections of the Israeli society refer to as “acts of Jewish terrorism,” against Palestinian individuals and property in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
These acts include the destruction and/or burning of property and possessions, such as homes (and their contents), public buildings, and vehicles; the stealing and/or mutilation of livestock; and the stealing and/or destruction of agricultural crops.
They are very rarely a direct reaction to specific Palestinian provocations or acts of terror against Jews and are apparently designed to frighten innocent Palestinian inhabitants and to get them to escape areas adjacent to unapproved/illegal Jewish “ranches” and neighborhoods. If left-wing Jewish individuals happen to be in the attacked areas with the purpose of assisting the Palestinians in their olive harvest, they too are attacked.
Although this activity is not part of an official policy of the Israeli government and has been condemned (more or less strongly) by individual ministers and various leaders of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria who believe that these activities are harmful to the Jewish settlement activity in the area, there is a gross perversion of justice in the treatment of these events.
It should be added that those criticizing these events on the government’s side frequently claim that the perpetrators of the attacks, who number several hundred and are generally referred to as unruly “hilltop youth,” are in fact endangered youth who require help and guidance, not punishment. Unfortunately, neither help nor guidance is offered, nor is appropriate punishment meted out.
IDF's inactivity
Last Friday, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir declared that “the Jewish rioters, these anarchists, can set the area on fire within a minute.” Yet he does not appear to have issued orders to IDF personnel who arrive in those locations of the violence to do all in their power to stop the rampages.
In fact, there have been cases in which IDF troops and police forces of the Judea and Samaria district have actually been observed giving the rioters a hand. At least the police are believed to have the backing of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never condemned these attacks on Palestinians but has condemned attacks by these very same Jewish rioters, who, on occasion, initiate confrontations with IDF units, going so far as damaging military vehicles and attacking military personnel, who do not act to their liking.
However, he has not acted to put an end to the activities of these rioters, possibly because he does not want to anger their supporters, believed to be members of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party. One cannot help wondering whether Netanyahu knows exactly who runs the rioters.
The bottom line is that very few Jewish rioters are actually caught, detained, and tried, especially since Defense Minister Israel Katz decided, exactly one year ago, to ban the use of administrative detention orders against Jews and has since refused to reverse his decision. Has Netanyahu ever confronted Katz on this issue?
Unequal treatment
This light-handed treatment of the Jewish rioters/terrorists is also applied to individuals such as Mordechai David, a former petty criminal, who publicly harasses and threatens left-wing journalists, such as legal reporters Guy Peleg from Channel 12 and Aviad Glickman from Channel 13. David can definitely be referred to as a bully, even though he claims to stay away from physical violence.
When compared to the treatment of left-wing demonstrators accused of alleged illegal acts in the course of their demonstrations, the treatment that David, who enjoys the public backing of several Likud officials and MKs, receives from the authorities in reaction to his activities is glaring. There are commentators who predict that Mordechai David might appear as a Likud candidate in the next general elections.
The detention of half a dozen demonstrators for the release of the hostages, who, on the morning of the 700th day after the hostages’ abduction, set fire to five trash containers in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, not far from Netanyahu’s home, emphasizes this difference. Four of these men – Mark Foigel, Lt.-Col. (res.) Amos Doron, Eyal Giller, and Shmuel Reuveni appeared on November 20 on the Hamakor program on Channel 13 to relate their harrowing experience.
They are all in their late 50s or early 60s and all went out voluntarily on October 7, 2023, to the Gaza environs to offer their assistance to the embattled settlements, even though all were above reserve-duty age. The trash containers they had set on fire in Rehavia were more than 100 meters away from the Prime Minister’s Residence, so they did not deserve the term Netanyahu used to describe them as a “ring of fire.”
Some damage was caused by the fire, including the burning of a reservist’s car parked next to one of the containers. All four admitted that what they had done was foolish and inappropriate, even though they also believed that in the final reckoning, their struggle to release the hostages had helped to bring about their release.
Israel's liberal democracy is in danger
Yet, for this act, they were detained for close to two months, were humiliated, and at one point were thrown into a dungeon, even though their test memorandums had stated that they posed no danger to society.
After over 50 days, they were released to home arrest, awaiting trial. Netanyahu referred to them as “fascists,” Justice Minister Yariv Levin called them “terrorists,” and Ben-Gvir described them as “terrorists, backed and encouraged by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara – the outlaw, who wants to burn the state.”
Incidentally, no haredi was ever detained even nearly as long for similar offenses (setting trash containers on fire) during haredi demonstrations against introducing trams in haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem or against the enlistment of haredi youths to the IDF. Nor was Mordechai David, who, back in 2021, during the COVID pandemic, set a bus on fire in Bnei Brak.
The examples brought above do not indicate that Israel’s liberal democracy has collapsed, only that a danger that it might collapse does exist, unless a change takes place in the foreseeable future in the way the state is being run.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked in the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.