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Throughout the protests against the judicial coup initiated by the Israeli government more than two years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the formation of the most right-wing government in the country’s history, the one issue that was completely swept under the carpet by the protesters was the nexus between the deterioration of Israel’s democracy and the nearly six-decade-long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Only a handful of those who faithfully participated in these mass protests linked the two issues. It is one of those blind spots that Israelis, including the more progressive ones, refuse to acknowledge and internalize: that without ending the occupation, Israel will never enjoy a flourishing democracy.

Events since Oct. 7, 2023, have exacerbated both the relations between Israelis and Palestinians and the desperation of the coalition government to sterilize the democratic system on the path to authoritarianism. We have seen a deluge of proposed legislation — whether private bills brought by members of the coalition or originating from within government ministries — that all have one aim: to destroy the system of checks and balances regulating the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, thereby allowing those in power to operate almost without brakes and on both sides of the Green Line.

Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, it has been uniquely “creative” in how it has referred to these territories. At the height of the euphoria after the Six-Day War, they were called “liberated territories,” then “administered territories” and sometimes the West Bank. But gradually they began to be referred to by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria, as if to reemphasize the claim that the territories belong exclusively to the Jewish people, with complete disregard for the Palestinian population that has lived there for many generations.

The antidemocratic practices employed in the Occupied Territories have gradually entered Israel’s domestic political discourse

Yossi Mekelberg

There was an even more ridiculously imaginative euphemism for the military regime imposed on Palestinians, which acknowledged that the state of affairs in the territories was one of occupation, but an “enlightened occupation,” which can only bring up a grim smile in face of such an unbearable oxymoron.

There has not been anything enlightening about the 58-year occupation, only a harsh military regime that continues to deprive millions of Palestinians of their political and human rights. Nevertheless, the antidemocratic practices employed in the Occupied Territories, and the state of mind that comes with it, have also gradually entered Israel’s domestic political discourse, driven unsurprisingly by those who support the occupation or practice it by living in Jewish settlements in violation of international law.

Having two diametrically opposed systems of governance in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but ruled by the very same people, has eroded the democratic system inside Israel proper. Moreover, as the paranoid idea of losing the Jewish character of Israel — itself a vague and contested notion — took hold, in 2018 the Knesset also gave in to the urge to enshrine in law the widespread discriminatory acts against the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

There are many facets to the occupation and all of them represent oppression, depriving millions of people of the most basic human, political and civil rights.

First and foremost, the occupation robs Palestinians of their right to self-determination. This was the case before the Oslo Accords and, to a large extent, following them, let alone in Gaza, where even the right to live is currently at the whim of the Israeli military. It is the ills of the occupation that have long been documented and, with them, the intolerable discrepancy between the rights Israelis enjoy compared to the lack of them for those who are occupied, which have led many to conclude that Israel has ended up creating an apartheid regime in the West Bank and Gaza.

What Israelis refuse to internalize, however, is the link between the extreme authoritarian nature of the occupation, which has normalized discrimination against an entire population and treated them as an enemy, and how the present-day government is in the same way portraying those who oppose it at home as enemies for daring to challenge it, despite the peaceful and democratic nature of this opposition. By opposing the judicial coup and supporting the gatekeepers of democracy, the protesters are getting a taste of what Palestinians have been enduring for decades.

Moreover, the security forces that have become accustomed to the use of excessive force against Palestinians, not necessarily as a method of countering militancy but as a system of oppression, are employing some similar methods, even if not to the same extent, against protesters — and in both cases with almost complete impunity. In the case of the West Bank, there is a special category of people, the settlers, particularly the extremists among them, who are given carte blanche to terrorize their Palestinian neighbors with no consequences for them or their settlement project. No wonder, then, that their supporters find it acceptable to take liberties with the law when it comes to their political opponents in Israel proper.

By opposing the judicial coup, the protesters are getting a taste of what Palestinians have been enduring for decades

Yossi Mekelberg

Even those who genuinely believe that it is their civic duty to defend the judiciary as a bastion of democratic values and rights in face of their government’s arbitrary behavior are failing to recognize that Palestinians on the “wrong” side of the Green Line do not have the same access to the courts as Israelis — and when they do manage to do so, they do not enjoy the same justice.

For instance, inside Israel, the phenomenon of “administrative arrests” is a rare occurrence, while in the Occupied Territories there were 3,327 in such detention at the end of last year. These people have, for all intents and purposes, been under arrest for a prolonged period without being convicted of any crime or even charged with any offence, and the Israeli courts allow this.

They also allow the objectionable practice of demolishing the houses of families of Palestinian terrorists, but not those of Israeli terrorists, when neither should be allowed. Moreover, if you live under occupation, you might find soldiers entering your house in the middle of the night and arresting you in front of your family on the basis of flimsy evidence and questionable legal process. This does not happen inside Israel. Neither are people’s freedom of movement and employment subject to the whims of the occupier, as they are in the Occupied Territories.

Many of these practices have not yet entered Israeli society, but the discourse employed by the government and its supporters has become more authoritarian and without regard for the rule of law. They believe it got them results in the West Bank and Gaza and, unless they face resistance, they will see no reason not to emulate that behavior inside Israel itself.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg