A Boring Dystopia

Israel's government is set to discuss on Sunday a proposal to restrict the use of administrative detention to cases involving terrorist activity against the state or its citizens.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is scheduled to discuss the revolutionary proposal devised by MK Simcha Rothman that would limit the use of administrative detention and restraining orders to members of specific terrorist organizations.

The result is very clear: Jewish terrorism in the West Bank will be immune to such measures.

It must be said: Administrative detention – that is, detention without trial – is a draconian tool that deprives persons of their liberty without even minimal due process on the basis of classified evidence and, in some cases, without the detainees knowing the allegations against them. There is no place for such an instrument in a democratic state, and at the very least its use should be limited to specific emergency situations.

However, a selective and racist restriction of the kind that Rothman proposes does not do this: It permits the continued use of administrative detention, with all its faults, against Arab citizens of the state, while prohibiting it entirely regarding settler terrorism in the West Bank.