Former Deputy Defense Minister Rav Eli ben Dahan talks about the sources of the legal and practical shortcomings of how the Civil Administration functions.
In the opinion of many, the existence of the Civil Administration and its conduct are among the significant ways that civil rights of almost half a million citizens of Israel are violated, due to the lack of sovereignty.
During his term as deputy defense minister, one of Rav Eli ben Dahan’s duties was responsibility for the activities of the Civil Administration. The changes that he sought to make in order to streamline the functioning of the Civil Administration were thwarted by the defense ministers that he served under. In a special interview for the Sovereignty website, he talks about the source of the Civil Administration’s problematic conduct, its severe ramifications for the settlement project, and how the application of sovereignty and Israeli law in Judea and Samaria will put an end to the ongoing harm.
“There is an intrinsic problem in the very existence of the Civil Administration”, begins Rav ben Dahan. “We are talking about military officers who are supposed to provide services to the citizens, while they actually do not have the ability to determine policy. Those who determine policy are mainly the Attorney General of Israel and the Department of Justice, whose direction is outlined by the Supreme Court, which views Israeli holding in Judea and Samaria belligerent occupation. They do not view Judea and Samaria as territory where we want to remain and where sovereignty has yet to be applied”.
“In addition, the Supreme Court has forced the state to accept on itself various parts of the Geneva Convention, even if the state itself does not believe that it applies to them. The significance of these conventions is that the Arab citizens are “protected citizens” – they, and not the Jews. Since they have this status, we must not take territory from them, and the seizure of public land is conditional on the possibility of using it for security purposes, etc. According to this concept, if there is any doubt, you go with the stricter approach”.
Those accords, which were forced upon the state by the Supreme Court, state that since it is territory under belligerent occupation, the applicable law in Judea and Samaria is what is defined by local law. “The problem is that in Judea and Samaria, the Jordanians ruled for 19 years, but they never repealed the previous law, so in this area, there is Ottoman law, Mandatory law, Jordanian law and on top of all this, there is also Israeli law in some matters. In such a reality, the legal concept is that care must be taken to behave strictly in all things”, says Rav ben Dahan, who views this legal mosaic as the root of the Civil Administration’s problematic conduct, but these shortcomings are only the first in the list that Rav ben Dahan enumerates.
“On top of this, since the Oslo Accords, the Civil Administration’s staff has been cut to one quarter. The Administration, since then, has indeed not had to provide services to a significant portion of the Arabs, but there is still not enough staff to give services to the citizens, whose number has grown since the Oslo Accords from a hundred thousand to almost a half million. Currently, about two hundred staff members are lacking in the Civil Administration in order to provide a reasonable level of service to the citizens”.
By acting with this exaggerated caution, the Civil Administration blocks settlers and real estate agents from acquiring lands. “There is disorder all over the country. If you want to buy land or a building, you get information on the internet on the plot and you know if there is a lien and who the owner is. In Judea and Samaria, there is no land registry and it is impossible to find the details. So it is impossible to know who the owner is, and on top of this, the Arabs fear being identified as the party selling the land because in the PA, selling land to Jews is punishable by death”.
And then there is the personal-political position of the head of the Civil Administration. Rav ben Dahan points out Brig. Gen. Ilan Paz, who held the position and whose positions were hostile to the settlement. Due to this, explains Rav ben Dahan, during Brig. Gen. Paz’s term, he led the Blue Line corrections of the area of the communities, thus arbitrarily marking as illegal entire neighborhoods and clusters of permanent buildings in mature communities.
As deputy defense minister, who was responsible for the Civil Administration, Rav ben Dahan sought to effect a change that would simplify and streamline the conduct of the Administration, but his proposals were blocked from the start. “No one mentioned the possibility of closing the Civil Administration. No one talked about it. I spoke with Ya’alon as well as with Lieberman about engaging organizational consultants to conduct the work in a better way”, he said.
“The Civil Administration works with staff officers, each one of which is responsible for a different field – archaeology, transportation, water, etc. Each such officer actually works for the relevant government Ministry but is subject to the instructions of the military officer who supervises him in the Administration. As we know, when people have two bosses, one that is professional and the other who tells them what to do, this doesn’t work”.
On the other hand, Rav Dahan saw that in one field, the field of education, there was no staff officer and he thought that this situation could and should be imitated. “The Ministry of Education does not have a staff officer. If the head of a council wants to build a school, he applies to the Ministry of Education directly, without a staff officer, but after the approval to build a school is obtained, the Civil Administration must approve the territory and the building plan, etc. I offered organizational proposals to check whether perhaps a staff officer might not be necessary so that the heads of the authorities could contact the relevant ministry directly in every field. They told me “Don’t touch it”.
In Rav ben Dahan’s estimation, the reason for the answer he got from the various ministers above him was the concern over creating sovereignty de facto in the area. “This is an explosive legal matter. If we shut down the Civil Administration, it means that there is de facto sovereignty. If you say that the residents of Area C are no longer subject to the Civil Administration, but rather to government ministries established for the region of Judea and Samaria, it means that we have actually applied Israeli law in Judea and Samaria and this is a matter that, from the Prime Minister downward, they are afraid to touch”.
Should the current Civil Administration be shut down? “Not all at once”, answers Rav ben Dahan. The Administration has some advantages like the ability to gather all the staff officers at one table and make a joint decision. Even to pave a road you need approval of the staff officers of archaeology, water, electricity, transportation, etc. and if the Administration is interested, it can also work quickly and take advantage of the fact that the officers are sitting next to each other, but in my view, I certainly would prefer the government ministries to provide services directly, without a mediator”.
Rav ben Dahan emphasizes that the obligation to streamline the functioning of the Civil Administration must be separate from the aspiration for sovereignty, since basically, this is a matter of ideological principle. “Even if an organizational consultant finds a way to streamline the system, even if the Civil Administration becomes more efficient with another 250 workers and even if the head of the Administration is someone who supports the settlement, our aspiration for sovereignty must not weaken”.