Last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro caused a stir by ever-so-gently telling the truth about the occupation. Speaking to a conference at Tel Aviv’s respected Institute for National Security Studies, he addressed “the latest increase in tensions and violence between Israelis and Palestinians,” and observed, “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities; too much vigilantism goes unchecked; and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.”

The outraged reaction from Israeli officials—which included a demeaning slur against the American ambassador by a former Netanyahu aide, as well as Netanyahu himself trying to shame Shapiro by noting the recent murder of an Israeli woman whom Shapiro had actually memorialized in his speech—was as overwrought as it was predictable. The fact that Shapiro’s words of concern were far outnumbered by words of solidarity and support mattered little. It has been the policy of the Netanyahu government that even the most carefully worded public criticisms by its closest friends shall be treated as an attack on the very foundations of the state.

It is simply a matter of fact that Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank live under two different systems of law—the former under Israeli civilian law, the latter under military law imposed after the territories were occupied in 1967. If an Israeli and Palestinian were to be arrested at the same spot in the West Bank at the same moment for the same crime, they would be subjected to two entirely different legal procedures, the former Israeli civil law and the latter military law. In this regard, it’s only Shapiro’s use of “seems” that seems a bit odd. Read more at Tablet Magazine