students at a Hebron college, attempted to bomb five East Jerusalem buses during rush hour—and plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in order to shatter Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt and prevent the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. Judges in the case noted that if carried out, the Dome of the Rock plot could have ignited war with the entire Muslim world. Three men were sentenced to life for the Hebron murders. But with repeated commutations, they walked free after less than seven years in prison. Yehudah Etzion, mastermind of the Temple Mount plot and an organizer of the attacks on the mayors, spent less than five years behind bars. Ze’ev Hever, charged with attempted murder for trying to booby-trap another Palestinian leader’s car, was free on a plea bargain a year after his arrest. In a 1986 interview, he told me he was “not ashamed” of what he’d done. Involvement in terrorism did not hurt his career. As of this writing, he has been the secretary-general of Amana, a settlement-building organization with close government ties, for over twenty years.
Karp’s report did not spark the rethinking of the rule of law that she sought. The “natural complexity of the situation” prevented that. As she noted many years later, the army and the police understood their role as protecting Israelis, not Palestinians. Put differently, they were not responsible for the welfare of the governed, for equal enforcement of laws, or for preventing conflict; they were a side to the conflict. The presence of Israeli civilians in the midst of a population under military occupation made this inevitable. As for the settlers, they were “soldiers” serving the policy of creeping annexation, but were not subject to military discipline or even to consistent legal constraints. For beyond the selective attention to international law, beyond the dual legal system and the misuse of local law, the settlement project turned occupied territory into a realm where, ultimately, there was no law.
The rule of law, in its substantive sense, is essential to a democratic state. By increments, the settlement project hollowed out the rule of law. Clear borders are fundamental to democracy. Settlement erased Israel’s border, or created several. For Jews, the state stretched from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, or perhaps to the Green Line plus the municipal limits of settlements. For Palestinians, the Green Line marked where government by the consent of the governed ended. Palestinians in occupied territory were only the subjects of military government. Unlike Arabs who had lived under military rule in Israel, they were not also “citizens of a liberal nation-state.” No political party in Israel stood to gain votes by paying passing attention to their needs.
From July 1967, all those involved in settlement saw themselves as serving Zionism. In fact, they were doing the opposite. They were living backward, turning a state into a movement. Stone by stone, they were dismantling the state of Israel.
All of this, I must stress, spurred opposition inside Israeli society, which has grown as the occupation has stretched on and settlement has expanded. Even in the ecstasy immediately after the Six-Day War, a few sober voices warned of the consequences of ongoing occupation. Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977 catalyzed the start of the Peace Now movement, which demanded that the government show its willingness to cede land for peace. Human rights organizations have sprung up and made the abuses in the occupied territories much or all of their agenda. The perennial problem of the critics has been that while they write reports and hold marches, the coalition of state agencies and settlers has continued “creating facts” by building houses in occupied land.
The unplanned war of 1967 and the ill-considered settlement effort afterward had another consequence, entirely unintended: they transmogrified
Karp’s report did not spark the rethinking of the rule of law that she sought. The “natural complexity of the situation” prevented that. As she noted many years later, the army and the police understood their role as protecting Israelis, not Palestinians. Put differently, they were not responsible for the welfare of the governed, for equal enforcement of laws, or for preventing conflict; they were a side to the conflict. The presence of Israeli civilians in the midst of a population under military occupation made this inevitable. As for the settlers, they were “soldiers” serving the policy of creeping annexation, but were not subject to military discipline or even to consistent legal constraints. For beyond the selective attention to international law, beyond the dual legal system and the misuse of local law, the settlement project turned occupied territory into a realm where, ultimately, there was no law.
The rule of law, in its substantive sense, is essential to a democratic state. By increments, the settlement project hollowed out the rule of law. Clear borders are fundamental to democracy. Settlement erased Israel’s border, or created several. For Jews, the state stretched from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, or perhaps to the Green Line plus the municipal limits of settlements. For Palestinians, the Green Line marked where government by the consent of the governed ended. Palestinians in occupied territory were only the subjects of military government. Unlike Arabs who had lived under military rule in Israel, they were not also “citizens of a liberal nation-state.” No political party in Israel stood to gain votes by paying passing attention to their needs.
From July 1967, all those involved in settlement saw themselves as serving Zionism. In fact, they were doing the opposite. They were living backward, turning a state into a movement. Stone by stone, they were dismantling the state of Israel.
All of this, I must stress, spurred opposition inside Israeli society, which has grown as the occupation has stretched on and settlement has expanded. Even in the ecstasy immediately after the Six-Day War, a few sober voices warned of the consequences of ongoing occupation. Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977 catalyzed the start of the Peace Now movement, which demanded that the government show its willingness to cede land for peace. Human rights organizations have sprung up and made the abuses in the occupied territories much or all of their agenda. The perennial problem of the critics has been that while they write reports and hold marches, the coalition of state agencies and settlers has continued “creating facts” by building houses in occupied land.
The unplanned war of 1967 and the ill-considered settlement effort afterward had another consequence, entirely unintended: they transmogrified
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