Die Kosten der Gesetzlosigkeit im Westjordanland

Gershom Gorenberg: “In recent years and months, settler attacks on Palestinians have grown in frequency, and the perpetrators have faced fewer consequences. Three factors are responsible. A new form of settlement has brought more radical settlers closer to Palestinian communities that are hard to protect, because they are scattered and rural. The Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have elevated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. And Netanyahu’s government has put extremist settlers, including Ben-Gvir, in key positions of authority … ”

“Ben-Gvir, also a settler and the leader of the Jewish Power Party, received the Ministry of National Security, which administers the national police force. By law and tradition, the minister’s control of the police is limited, with operative decisions, such as how to handle an investigation or a disturbance, the sole province of professional police, not politicians. But Ben-Gvir has repeatedly crossed that line.

“The effect on how the police handle—or don’t handle—settler violence is best illustrated by the case of Avishai Mualem, the officer in charge of the serious-crimes investigation unit in the West Bank police district. In a Knesset subcommittee hearing in March, Mualem testified that the number of complaints filed with the police regarding violence by settlers had dropped by half since the beginning of the war, compared with the same period the year before. In the southern sector of the West Bank, the South Hebron Hills, half of the complaints had been false, he said. He blamed ‘anarchists’—apparently meaning Israelis who volunteer to assist Palestinians … ”

“Mualem was arrested on December 2 by an independent unit in the state attorney’s office that investigates crime within the police force. Mualem is alleged to have failed to arrest Jews suspected of terror attacks, at Ben-Gvir’s request, and leaked police-intelligence information to the minister, all in return for rapid advancement. Because of the alleged quid pro quo, the potential charges include bribery. Mualem denies the allegations. But if the claims are correct, then the police failure to crack down on settler violence is a matter of policy, dictated by Ben-Gvir.

“Settlers who attack Palestinians surely suspect as much. And the price that Palestinians in the West Bank pay for the resulting lawlessness includes the loss of crops, homes, and lives.

“Israelis pay a less obvious price that is nonetheless quite real. From its start, the settlement enterprise has been tainted by disregard for the rule of law. The first Israeli settlement, in the Golan Heights in the summer of 1967, received funds fraudulently allocated by a government ministry. Soon after that, the first settlement in the West Bank was established in knowing violation of international law. A 2005 report detailed how the outposts established in the previous decade, in violation of Israeli law, received funding and other support from government ministries. Enforcement of the law against violent settlers has been sporadic all along.

“The goal of settlement in occupied territory has always been to change the borders of Israel. But an essential element of a democratic state is the rule of law. The failure to stop settler violence is the latest sign that in the bid to expand Israel’s territory, the settlement project corrodes the foundations of the state itself.”

Read more: [https://theatln.tc/s6XdPrKs](https://theatln.tc/s6XdPrKs)

A big pressure advancing the growth of these settlements is housing in Israel. I wonder if an investment arcologies would mitigate that. megastructures with parks, schools, apartments, shelters, iron dome protection, etc.