West Bank Occupation Corrupts Israeli Society, Scholar Argues

A scholar argues that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is not a distant reality but is deeply intertwined with and corrupting Israeli society itself. The prevailing notion that the occupation occurs "over there" while a stable liberal democracy exists within sovereign Israel is a psychological defense mechanism, allowing Israelis to imagine that prolonged control over another people does not distort their own moral, cultural, and political character.

However, the article contends that prolonged occupation necessitates the creation of laws, decrees, institutions, enforcement mechanisms, legal precedents, and political language that inevitably spill over into Israel proper. Individuals, institutions, and language used to maintain the occupation operate in both spheres. Soldiers exposed to violence and discrimination in the West Bank return home, jurists drafting rules for the West Bank also work within Israel, and state officials move between both arenas. Precedents set in the occupied territories that allow for the denial of basic freedoms can expand the repertoire of governmental actions within Israel, and security language developed to justify restrictions on the occupied population can be used to justify restrictions within Israel itself.

This institutional, cultural, and political process manifests in the social legitimization of ongoing harm to the principle of equality, increased violence, selective law enforcement, and the erosion of Israeli democracy. The article highlights the unequal rights between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, a disparity the International Court of Justice defined in July 2024 as a violation of the CERD convention. This norm of inequality, where basic human rights are not seen as universal but as favors that can be granted or denied, and where equality can be limited by security, national, or religious considerations, does not necessarily stop at the border with the West Bank.

Evidence of this is seen in Israel's Basic Law: Israel, The Nation-State of the Jewish People, which explicitly omits the principle of equality as a constitutional right. Significant disparities exist between the Jewish and Arab populations in Israel in areas like personal security, employment, and social infrastructure, with official studies and state comptroller reports indicating the government's failure to reduce these gaps. The article also points to the political discourse, where Arab parties are largely excluded from government, and the normalization of inequality and discrimination extends to secular versus religious Jews and even the government's differential treatment of protesters and critics.

Furthermore, the erosion of the rule of law is evident in the selective enforcement of laws. Violence by settlers and "hilltop youth" in the West Bank often faces less stringent enforcement than Palestinian violence, which is defined as terrorism. Data from the "Yesh Din" movement shows that since 2005, 93.6% of investigations into settler offenses against Palestinians in the West Bank ended without an indictment, and only 3% resulted in conviction. This selective enforcement has seeped into Israel proper, reflected in the state's ineffectiveness in ensuring the personal security of Arab citizens, who experienced a murder rate 14 times higher than the Jewish population in 2024. The article concludes that the fight for Israeli democracy cannot be separated from the fight to end the occupation, as the principles of inequality, selective law enforcement, and the undermining of democratic foundations normalized by the occupation are actively shaping and distorting Israeli society.