On Wednesday, a Jerusalem judge ordered that one of the two jailed settlers be released to house arrest. Reality imitated the most cynical predictions: The Palestinians who sought to ward off an invasion will remain in custody and, under pressure from the settlers and their political parties, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in a military court by Israeli Jewish military judges. The invaders, meanwhile, will be released and judged leniently in a civilian court, also by Jewish judges who know very well who the boss is.
MK Ahmad Tibi asked on Monday to visit the four Palestinian prisoners. He sent his request to the police commander in the West Bank, Uzi Levy, because a permit to visit a detainee must be issued by the official in charge of the investigation. MKs Tally Gotliv and Zvi Sukkot had already rushed to the hospital to visit the detainee Yehiel Eindor, who is suspected of shooting and being involved in the killing of Mi’tan and was wounded by stones during the clash.
Ben-Gvir said he had nothing to do with the visit and wasn’t authorized to permit it. But on Tuesday evening, Tibi received a letter from the same minister, forbidding him to visit the four Palestinian detainees, although it was not in his authority to do so.
Thus, Ben-Gvir made it clear how deeply Israel is wallowing in a dunghill of double and quadruple standards.
The double standard philosophy and practice, which distinguish between Jews and Palestinians (both Arab citizens of Israel and Arab subjects in the occupied territories), are not new. Their products – a dual system of laws, military and civilian, in the same place, discrimination in planning for Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, and leniency for Jews’ violence – are the previous governments’ legacy.
But Ben-Gvir is competing with Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance and minister of settlements and outposts, to see who can twist the apartheid knife in deeper. Ben-Gvir is expanding inequality in the Knesset as well, between an elected Arab public official and an elected Jewish public official, by his and other rightists’ delegitimization of the very presence of Arab parties in parliament.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir were chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is primarily responsible for the rapid turn to fascism taking place before our eyes and threatening us all.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.