Ben Gvir: The hallmark of an apartheid government

The Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, made racist statements during the interview with the Israeli Channel 12 News, in which he said: My right and the right of my wife and children to move in Judea and Samaria (the biblical designation for the occupied West Bank) is more important than the right of the Arabs to move. My right to life comes before their right to movement. This is the reality.

The truth is that it is a living reality, that it calls for a system of systematic oppression and unilateral control of one ethnic group over another ethnic group in occupied territories, and this is according to the legal analysis of the International Criminal Court, and Ben Gvir’s statement is an admission that the policy he wants and that he seeks to advance as a minister in the Israeli Government, is, categorically, an apartheid policy, and Ben Gvir embodies the racism and apartheid that characterizes Israel, and its brand-named government.

And he expressed it again, and said that my right and the right of my Jewish brothers to travel and return home in peace in the streets of Judea and Samaria, outweighs the right of the terrorists who throw stones and kill us. I will not apologize and will not go back on my words.

It is a true expression of the true face of the racist, fascist Israeli Government, what it is doing, the situation based on apartheid, the daily life of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, and the unjust siege on our people in the Gaza Strip.

The condemnation of the United States is without any importance, and it is similar to the condemnation issued by it regarding the terrorism of the settlers and its description of their attacks on the Palestinians as terrorism. This comes in the context of defending the Israeli government and absolving it of responsibility before the international community, and its silence on the incitement of Ben Gvir and other fascists in the government coalition. Their racist statements come in the context of legitimizing and perpetuating the Israeli occupation and apartheid, deepening settlement activity, and imposing more forms of injustice, persecution, and collective punishment on the Palestinians.

In an article by the military analyst for the Haaretz newspaper, Amos Harel, published today, Friday, in which he says that between an attack and another murder in Arab society, it has become more and more clear that violence serves the parties to the fascist government coalition. And that the settlers talk about Operation Defensive Wall 2, the goal is more than just revenge.

As the crisis surrounding the coup deepens, the connection between it and what is happening in the West Bank becomes clear. It is doubtful if this is high on Netanyahu's list of priorities, but for his far-right partners the possibility is clear: the formation of an extremist government and the weakening of the justice system will serve their plans to expand settlements, increase friction with the Palestinians and weaken external checks on the exercise of power in the West Bank.

In a new position paper by Attorney Tamar Feldman of the Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights, published last week, she states that the government has "promote two major systemic steps since its establishment, regime change and the establishment of a new government, and sovereignty in the West Bank. The two movements are intrinsically linked to each other." They start from the same basic assumptions and are guided by the same rationale, which is the aspiration to establish a government without limits and free from restrictions.

According to Feldman, the coup not only reflects the extension of authoritarian concepts and practices from the occupied territories to Israel itself, but rather serves as a tool to loosen the reins of authoritarian rule in the territories themselves and makes it possible to free the hands of the military, the commander-in-chief, the security forces and the government of Israel, from responsibility for the fate of its inhabitants and their basic rights, who are defined as a "protected" population under international law.

Feldman said changes in the government structure and limits on the exercise of power in the West Bank establish control over the territories and change their legal status. At the same time, the neutralization of judicial review, harming the independence and accessibility of the judicial system allows in practice the stabilization of the status of the Palestinian population as subjects without rights. The combination of control of the territories along with the violation of the power of judicial review, allows Israel to rule without standards in the territories without responsibility to its inhabitants, to extend sovereignty over space without concern for the rights of its citizens, and to exercise maximum authority with minimum responsibility, this time both in law or in practice.

Although the Israeli judicial system is part of the occupation system, the shining fact that refutes the democratic nature of the occupying state, while the Palestinians live under the apartheid regime. The claim now that the ultimate goal of judicial reform is to tighten restrictions on the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, to deprive the Palestinians of their rights, to annex more lands, and to ethnically cleanse all Palestinian lands under racist Israeli military rule, is a policy pursued and invested in by successive Zionist governments.