Israel has shelved the rule of law in war and at home

Destruction following an Israeli strike around tents for displaced people in Deir al-Balah, 14 October 2024

Zvi Bar’el writes in Haaretz on 15 October 2024:

In calling the cabinet “a refuge for improper decision-making,” Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is going way too easy on the government, which for more than a year has been operating according to the laws of war. Not the ones mandated by international conventions or Israel’s legal code, but the ones formulated by a twisted outlook that places the war above the law and asserts that the law is a hostile entity standing in the way of “total victory.”

This is not just about irregularities in senior appointments or how the ministers conduct their work. The manner in which the war is being waged is marked by a profound legal deficit. Wild conduct by soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza, destruction of property, using Palestinians as “sniffer dogs” and indiscriminate killing of civilians have become accepted norms that draw their legitimacy from being an inseparable part of the holy war in which all is permitted.

In this war, not only has the law been shelved on the battlefield, it has also been shredded in the civilian sphere. Not only in the territories has the application of the law become a joke, with known offenders going about their abhorrent business with no fear of any consequences, knowing the army and police have their backs.

Inside Israel, too, the police have taken on the status of an independent legislative authority. It bans the screening of “dangerous” films, arrests citizens on suspicion of “incitement” without any legal basis, cancels cultural events for reasons having nothing to do with Home Front Command instructions, and impedes the work of journalists. The discussions taking place in television studios are not about the legality of starving hundreds of thousands of Gazans or even of the morality of the “generals’ plan,” but about the level of effectiveness.

The horrible trauma that Israel experienced on October 7 shattered people’s faith in any diplomatic solution. Evidence of this can be seen in the sick twisting of the mode of thinking regarding the hostages. Until a few months ago, the prevailing narrative favored striving for a deal even if it meant ending the war and withdrawing the army from Gaza – i.e., a diplomatic conclusion to the military move. This narrative has since been buried along with the hostages.

Not only have they been turned into a burden and their families into traitors who are hurting the war effort, mere consideration of a “deal” is perceived as immoral and detracting from the military fervor. The time for a deal will come, if at all, only after we finish all the wars – in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The objective of the war in Lebanon – “returning the residents of north to their homes” – has also become secondary. First, we have to wipe out Hezbollah, “fully realize the military achievements,” clear out another tunnel and another village and control southern Lebanon. An military-guided visit to Gaza for journalists no longer generates any excitement.

The new attraction is a tour of the Hezbollah tunnels. As in Gaza, these tours are meant to prove the necessity of continuing “to cleanse the area,” to reject any diplomatic proposal, to continue prosecuting the war and to establish the necessity of a permanent Israel Defense Forces presence in southern Lebanon.

The “no partner” axiom made its way from the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and now Lebanon. It deliberately plants the idea of the impossibility of a diplomatic solution, so that perpetual war comes to be seen as an inescapable reality, and along with it the legitimacy of the “rules of war” undermining the rule of law.

This approach is not a subjective feeling or a genuine diplomatic-military situation. It is developing into an ambitious strategy that won’t stop at using the war as a tool to ensure the government’s continued rule, especially that of the criminal defendant at its head. Its ideological aim will be to shape the character of Israeli society and prepare it for a new legal era based upon a permanent state of emergency that grants the government legitimacy to run the country however it pleases.

This will be sold as a “sober awakening” in which the use of normative “regular” laws will be framed as belonging to the pre-October 7 world. And will lead to a new world that far surpasses even the wildest dreams of the regime coup’s architects.

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