Arnon and the other 800 residents of an Israeli settlement in Hebron’s Old City live under Israeli civil law, enjoying the same protections against warrantless searches, the arrest of minors and other police powers as their countrymen living in Israel. “Israeli law must apply here,” said Arnon, who believes that Jews have a biblical and historical claim to these ancient lands. “Hebron is more Israeli than Tel Aviv.”
But the decades-old system in which Israel extends its legal code to its citizens settling in the Palestinian territories is suddenly imperiled. Lawmakers in Jerusalem are deadlocked on renewing the arrangement in a schism that could dissolve the unusual two-tiered legal system and subject the West Bank’s Israelis to the same martial law as their Palestinian neighbors.
It is a dispute threatening to bring down the country’s year-old government.
Politicians have until the end of the month to reconcile differences that have split members of the diverse governing coalition, which includes right-wing, left-wing and Palestinian Israeli parties. The measure failed to pass an initial attempt to renew it this month after several coalition members voted against the measure or abstained.
Members of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party enthusiastically support the extension of civil law, but they voted against it in hopes of bringing