Bill giving illegal settlers full rights as citizens passes first reading in Israel

Israel’s parliament has approved the first reading of a bill to extend its discriminatory laws in the occupied West Bank. Known as “emergency regulations,” laws issued under the bill exist to preserve an apartheid system of governance in which two systems of laws are applied in a single territory: one- a civilian legal system for Israeli Jewish citizens, and a second – a military court system for non-Jewish residents.

The bill was first enacted in 1967, following a second wave of ethnic cleansing which led to the full takeover of Palestine by the apartheid state. They formalise the relationship between settlers in the occupied West Bank – Israel’s Jewish citizens who live beyond the official borders of the country – and the Israeli system of governance. Israel has applied its discriminatory laws in the occupied territories ever since and extends the regulations every five years. It faced a stumbling block in June when the bill failed to get an extension for another five years due to political fracturing.

Lawmakers in the Israeli Knesset however approved earlier today the first reading of a bill to extend the emergency orders. Fifty-eight out of 120 Knesset lawmakers voted in favour of extending the orders, according to Haaretz, including members of the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those same members voted against the bill last summer.

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Israeli media quoted sources in the Labor Party today as saying that the party voted against the bill because, “Unlike previous governments, which understood that this was a temporary arrangement on the way to a political solution, given the composition of the current government, where the Civil Administration is subordinated to [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich’s control, these are regulations for annexation that are opposed to Zionism.”

This apartheid bill is known officially as the “Emergency Regulations (Judea and Samaria—Adjudication of Offences and Legal Assistance)” in reference to the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

The law will grant powers to Israeli courts to try settlers who commit crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It also allows the Israeli occupation authorities to impose sanctions on Palestinians in the territories occupied since 1967 and to arrest them. Once arrested, Palestinians will also be imprisoned within Israel in a clear breach of international law which has been happening on the ground for many years. Palestinians living under occupation already face being tried in military court.

Rights groups cite the separate legal system in the West Bank as one of the clearest examples of Israel’s practice of the crime of apartheid. The creation of separate legal and administrative regimes within the territory, have divided Palestinian communities and segregated them from Jewish Israelis. Palestinians have been fragmented geographically and politically, and experience different levels of discrimination depending on their status and where they live.

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