Saturday, September 19, 2015

Not calling it an "occupation" doesn't make it any better

I don't get why the settler movement resists the idea that the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria, honestly I don't care what they want to call it) is "occupied." If there isn't an occupation in the West Bank, then it's just blatant de jure segregation and discrimination.

I mean, there's no question that an entirely different legal system applies to Arabs in the West Bank than does the Jewish settlers (settlers are governed by Israeli law, with a full range of civil rights. Arabs are governed by military law, with many fewer rights.) "Occupation" at least explains why the different treatment exists (even if it makes all the settlements illegal). Without a concept of occupation it is just legally-enforced discrimination, with the mysterious presence of a whole lot of soldiers for a non-occupied area.