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Israel: far-right government ‘insists’ on immunity for Israeli soldiers

December 22, 2022 at 11:10 am

Heavy armed Israeli soldiers securing an area in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus [Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]

Laws giving immunity to soldiers and police for crimes committed against Palestinians and making changes to open-fire rules are being pushed by the new far-right Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. The occupation state’s longest serving prime minister has formed the most extreme, ultra-nationalist coalition in the country’s history which many have warned could see the collapse of democracy.

Ministers in the new government include figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in Israel in 2007 for incitement to racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist organisation. They have been granted major concessions to join the Netanyahu-led coalition. Legislation that will give immunity from prosecution to Israeli soldiers is one of their demands. Netanyahu is also looking to put himself above the law by changing the rules so that he will be absolved of the many bribery charges hanging over him.

Both Netanyahu and the far-right religious parties could get the immunity they are seeking under the current coalition government. “We are insisting on a law giving immunity to soldiers and police and on changes to open-fire rules,” the head of the coalition-negotiations team and Ben-Gvir’s likely bureau chief in the ministry told Israel Hayom two weeks ago, Haaretz has reported.

“Without a change in the open-fire regulations and an immunity law for soldiers and police, there’s nothing we want from the government,” added Chanamel Dorfman. “We won’t join the government without them.”

Read: Netanyahu’s coalition looks like a Jewish Daesh, but could be better for the Palestinians

Israeli defence officials quoted by Haaretz said that an immunity law protecting soldiers and security officials of the apartheid state may have the opposite effect. They are said to have expressed concern in private conversations about such legislation, warning that it will cause Israel to lose the legitimacy that it has enjoyed within the international community when it conducts military operations.

Apparently one of the reasons why Israeli soldiers have not yet been prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity is the international community’s perception that the Israeli government has the legal mechanisms in place to bring to justice those citizens who violate the law. Israel has managed to sidestep countless calls for prosecutions by insisting that its legal and political system can carry out independent investigations for crimes committed by its soldiers.

Defence officials are worried that Israel will not be able to make this claim to the ICC or the international community if the immunity legislation is passed. With increasing pressure on the ICC and the UN to investigate Israel’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, the same officials say that the focus of the international community will turn to Israel when the war in Ukraine ends.

The push to pass immunity legislation is one of the many reasons why the New York Times has said that democracy in Israel is hanging by a thread. “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy” was the headline of an NYT editorial about a government led by far-right extremists and supporters of Jewish terrorist groups.