What is the best defense of the apartheid-like system Israel enforces in occupied/settled/disputed territories?

Great Debates
1

A couple of years ago, I asked a question in FQ about claims made by Ta-Nehisi Coates about the West Bank:

I quoted these snippets from Coates’ book:

There were streets that we would encounter where we were allowed as non-Palestinians to walk and Palestinians were not allowed to walk. …

I was on my way to support a vendor, and a guard came out and he stopped me and he said, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “I don’t really have a religion. I’m not a particularly religious person.” He said, “Come on, don’t play. What is your religion? … What is your parents’ religion? … What was your grandmother’s religion?” I said, “Well, my grandmother was a Christian.” And he said, “OK, you can go past.” And it was so blatant. It was so clear. … I wouldn’t have been allowed to pass [if I was Muslim]. That was clear.

if a Palestinian is arrested on the West Bank, they are subject to the military system of justice, whereas if a Jewish settler is arrested on the West Bank, they’re subjected to the civil system.

AFAICT, no one disputes these factual claims. Many might think they’re warranted/deserved/appropriate, and that’s what I want to get at. This isn’t about definitions – if you don’t consider the above “apartheid” or “apartheid-like”, fine, I’m not interested in that debate. I consider it apartheid-like, or Jim Crow-ish, or similar, but I don’t really care what phrases others use to describe these circumstances, at least for the purposes of this discussion. For this discussion, I’m curious as to the best defense of these circumstances. Why do advocates/defenders/rationalizers of the status quo think it’s okay that settlers can brutalize Palestinians while only being subject to the civil justice system, while if Palestinians do the same thing to settlers, they are subject to military law? Why is it okay that a Christian-identified tourist (like Coates) can go down streets that Palestinians who were born in the actual town cannot? I’m sure there are overtly bigoted reasons (i.e. “they’re subhuman”, “they’re all terrorists”, etc.), but those aren’t the best arguments. What are the actual best arguments?

2

“For this discussion, I’m curious as to the best defense of these circumstances.”

I suppose someone could justify these restrictions for “security reasons”, assuming there was a reasonable security risk in letting Palestinians, or any other minority group, from occupying that area. I’m not defending that position, I’m just saying that residents in any area are entitled to a certain level of security and such restrictions may be in place to help guarantee that for those residents.

3

I can sort of see a conceivable argument about how legal segregation is for protection (though obviously I don’t accept such an argument), but how would that conceivably justify the disparate justice systems?

4

I would think think that only Israeli citizens would be subject to their civil justice system and that Palestinians are not considered citizens and therefor subject to military law. Whether this is fair or not I can’t say. If Palestinians ARE considered Israeli citizens, e.g. they can vote, then it’s clearly discriminatory.

5

I don’t think that’s how it works in the US - citizens and non citizens alike both are subject to the same criminal justice process if they are accused of law breaking.

6

You may very well be right about that, but since Israel is at war with Hamas and Hezbollah then I assume those members are rightfully subject to military law. I am no expert.

7

Enemy combatants, yes, but Palestinian civilians?

8

You are correct. According to Google AI, " Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are not subject to the Israeli civil justice system. Instead, they are governed by a separate dual-legal structure where residents of the West Bank are tried in Israeli military courts." I don’t know what dual-legal means here. I guess it means there are two systems of justice at the same time.

9

I have heard the following too (which is far from a solid reference for it being true): that the military cannot go and crack down on “Jewish settlers” more precisely because they are Israeli citizens and therefore only the cops are authorized to deal with them as criminals, except in the case of martial law and suchlike. Whereas the “Palestinians who were born in the actual town” are not Israeli citizens.

I.e. if someone were to go arrest settlers who brutalize Palestinians on charges of terrorism, hate speech, etc.. it would not be the Israeli army.

Does the U.S. criminal justice system have any jurisdiction outside the U.S.? Becasue we are not talking about territories annexed by Israel— these are places in the West Bank, Lebanon, Gaza, etc. One wonders how many of these Jewish settlers would actually stay if they found themselves in the middle of a Palestinian state tomorrow, one with laws under which they could be prosecuted.

10

Sounds like a description of what the USA did to the natives in the 1800s into the 1900s. Even when it stopped it was taken over by Federals in the BIA.

11

Let us not forget the Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel. I think the label “Separate but Equal,” is a fitting description:

The 2007 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices[323] notes that:
“According to a 2005 study at Hebrew University, three times more money was invested in education of Jewish children as in Arab children.”
Human Rights Watch has charged that cuts in veteran benefits and child allowances based on parents’ military service discriminate against Arab children: “The cuts will also affect the children of Jewish ultra-orthodox parents who do not serve in the military, but they are eligible for extra subsidies, including educational supplements, not available to Palestinian Arab children.”[324]
According to the Guardian, in 2006 just 5% of civil servants were Arabs, a number of them hired to deal with other Arabs, despite the fact that Arab citizens of Israel comprise 20% of the population.

Much more here.

12

The vast majority of palestinians support rape, torture, murder and terrorism against Jews. Thats the justification for why palestinians face more security than non-palestinians, because when you ask them, the vast majority of palestinians will tell you that they want to inflict pain and suffering on Jewish people. If would be nice if the ~25% of palestinians who wanted to live in peace could be separated and allowed to live their lives peacefully, but I don’t know if there is any way to separate them from the 3/4 who support murder and torture.

There was no mass support among black people for rape and torture of random white people under Jim crow.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/

Seventy-two percent of [palestinian] respondents said they believed the Hamas decision to launch the cross-border rampage in southern Israel was “correct” given its outcome so far, while 22% said it was “incorrect”. The remainder were undecided or gave no answer.

Fifty-two percent of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents - or 72% of Palestinian respondents overall - voiced satisfaction with the role of Hamas in the war. Only 11% of Palestinian voiced satisfaction with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

13

But even supposing that polling (and your expanded characterization of that polling) accurately captures the views of a majority of Palestinians, the most egregious of the apartheid-like conditions have nothing to do with security. There’s no security reason why Palestinians should be subject to military justice, while settlers are only subject to civil justice. Nor why brutalization, vandalism, murder, and rape of Palestinians by settlers and the IDF is largely tolerated by the Israeli government.

Do you have a cite for this claim? I’m unaware of any such polling during Jim Crow. Perhaps the closest historical analogy might be the Nat Turner slave rebellion, or John Brown’s attack… I suspect that, if polling existed at the time, Black Americans would have widely supported both of those events. But there’s no way to know with any certainty.

14

It is a military occupation. Allowing settlers in is a war crime implying that it is actually a conquest. Conquest went out of fashion a century or so back.

15

Why would people who aren’t citizens of Israel and don’t live in Israel be subject to Israeli civil law?

16

It is a military occupation, but a legal clusterfuck because Israeli courts have opened up a can of worms where Israeli law is applied to some of these settlers because they are Israeli citizens, in an attempt to get them to pay taxes, for example.

Some of these settlers are Israeli citizens.

If the Israeli army were to go and arrest them, I honestly have no idea how that would play out legally. Currently, they have the support of the regime, however.

17

That might fly as an explanation if it also applied to settlers (and if that law actually protected Palestinian civilians against crimes), but it doesn’t, in both cases. It’s a two-tier system, just like Jim Crow and Apartheid, with Palestinians on the bottom tier, whether they’re the suspects or victims of criminal acts.

18

This seems an odd time for this thread. Maybe a year ago, it would have been reasonable, but now, the situation in Palestine isn’t like apartheid nor Jim Crow, by virtue of being much worse.

19

However bad it is, I want to understand why and how supporters of these conditions justify it, beyond simple bigotry (which IMO is obviously a very large part).

20

…the baseline for this discussion surely needs to be grounded in international law.

And in this case we should look to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. I think thats pretty definitive.

I don’t think there is a legitimate defence for what is happening on the West Bank. It’s like asking a murderer, “What is the best defence you can offer up for that murder you just did?” There isn’t a single one that can be offered up which wouldn’t be in direct defiance of the points outlined in the ICJ opinion.

Every single one would fail the legal threshold. Every single argument offered in this thread so far, in particular the “vast majority of palestinians support rape, torture, murder and terrorism against Jews” one, could never pass legal muster.

Because you can’t subject a people to an apartheid-like system on the basis of a political poll. Especially a political poll that was taken decades after the apartheid-like system was first introduced.