Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday announced the cancellation of administrative detention orders for Judea and Samaria settlers who are currently held in detention. They will be immediately released to their homes, with no plans to extend their detention period.
“In light of the anticipated release of terrorists in Judea and Samaria as part of the hostage release deal, I have decided to release the settlers currently held in administrative detention,” DM Katz announced. “This decision sends a clear message of support and encouragement to the settlement community, which stands at the forefront of the fight against Palestinian terrorism and continues to face significant security challenges. It is more fitting for the families of Jewish settlers to find joy than for the families of released terrorists.”
Of course, as some have pointed out, the release of Arab terrorists was never a prerequisite to releasing Jews from administrative detention. Indeed, Katz announced shortly after replacing Yoav Gallant as DM that he was going to release all the Jewish administrative detainees and then changed his mind.
In mid-November 2024, Katz announced that, following a meeting with Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, he decided to halt the use of administrative arrest warrants against Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria. He also requested the implementation of alternative measures.
In his statement back then, Katz said: “In a reality where Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria face severe threats from Palestinian terrorism, supported and fueled by the Iranian axis of evil working to establish a regional terrorist front against the State of Israel, and where unjustified international sanctions are being imposed on settlers and settlement organizations, it is inappropriate for the State of Israel to take such extreme measures against settlers.”
And then, 24 hours later, Katz took a political U-turn, reinstating administrative detention against Jewish settlers.
Administrative detention is an arrest made by the authority of an executive and not by a court. The arrest is not intended for investigation or trial nor to protect the detainee. Most of the time, administrative detention is done for security reasons, on the grounds that the detainee may endanger the security of the state sometime in the future.
In Israeli law, administrative detention gets its authority from the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 that have been in effect since the British Mandate rule. In 1951, members of the Haredi underground Brit Kana’im (united zealots) were arrested and placed under administrative detention, which raised a fierce objection from the right-wing statesman who founded Minister Gallant’s Likud Party.
MK Menachem Begin (then chairman of the Herut Party) attacked the use of administrative detention, comparing it to Nazism:
“There are tyrannical laws, there are immoral laws, there are Nazi laws. Don’t ask me who determines which law is Nazi and which law is immoral. The law you used is tyrannical, it is immoral, and an immoral law is also illegal. Therefore, your arrest is arbitrary. You had no right to do this, when there is a Knesset, a court, when you have an investigative system.”
In the past seventy years, there have been 25 administrative detentions of Jews in Israel, out of which 19 were carried out in the year and a half of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s tenure. Gallant had launched an unprecedented, predatory campaign against the Jews of Judea and Samaria.
Now, at last, DM Katz will remove this shameful affront to democracy, then reinstate it, then remove it again, and then who knows what.
