From Military Regime to Civilian Annexation: The Israeli Bureaucracy of the Occupation in the West Bank

By Youssef Mnaili, PhD in Political Science from the EUI (European University Institute), researcher at WISER (Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), and associate editor of the journal Settler Colonial Studies.

Since 1967, the West Bank has been administered by Israel under the guise of a supposedly temporary military regime. But this legal fiction has gradually given way to a very different reality: a de facto annexation, carried out through bureaucratic mechanisms and increasing infiltration of the state apparatus by settlers. The transfer of civilian powers in 2022, notably to Minister Bezalel Smotrich, marks a historic turning point: the army is no longer the primary authority. Israeli civilians, engaged in the colonial project, now govern the occupied territory. The distinction between occupation and sovereignty is gradually blurring. Far from proclaiming annexation, Israel is pursuing a discreet but radical policy of territorial integration through decrees, appointments, and budgets. This is a silent transformation that defies international law and redefines the contours of the Israeli colonial regime.

The Apartheid Wall in the Occupied West Bank

The Apartheid Wall in the Occupied West Bank

Since 1967, Israel's occupation of the West Bank has been based on an administrative architecture as dense as it is opaque. Initially conceived as a "temporary" military regime, it has gradually been colonized from within by civilian actors, until it has undergone a profound structural transformation. What we are seeing today, particularly under the current Israeli government, is no longer an occupation in the traditional legal sense of the term, but a creeping annexation that is taking on the characteristics of increasingly assertive civilian governance. This annexation is not achieved through solemn political declarations, but through a prolonged bureaucratic shift, supported by legal mechanisms, transfers of powers, and the gradual takeover of the state apparatus by the settler movement.

Occupation: A Legal Fiction Out of Balance

International humanitarian law defines occupation as a temporary situation. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 requires the occupying power to respect the territorial status quo and ensure the protection of the occupied civilian population. This is an exceptional regime that prohibits any permanent modification of the territory, particularly the settlement of the occupying power's civilian population on conquered land.

However, the situation in the West Bank is a flagrant derogation from these principles. For over fifty years, Israel has established nearly 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The latter benefit from Israeli civil law, while the Palestinians are still governed by military law. This asymmetry produces a legal duality that is anything but temporary. It embodies a logic of racial stratification and segregated governance that contradicts the very principle of occupation under international law.

From Military to Civil Order: Bureaucratic Changes

Israel's management of the West Bank began in 1967 with the establishment of a military command. A founding decree granted the commander-in-chief of the Israeli forces absolute power over the occupied territory. The latter can legislate, govern, appoint, and designate local authorities. This centralization is compatible with international law, as long as it remains an expression of provisional military control.

To implement this governance, Israel established a specific structure: COGAT, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which was responsible for civil affairs, while the army provided security. At first glance, this arrangement appeared to comply with the rules of international law. But very quickly, civil servants from Israeli ministries were seconded to the West Bank. Responding to a dual hierarchy (their home ministry and the military command), they introduced a hybrid logic into the occupation apparatus.

This hybrid model quickly revealed its limitations: staffing was insufficient, secondments were unpopular, language skills (particularly Arabic) were lacking, and hierarchical conflicts abounded. It was into this bureaucratic vacuum that settlers, starting in the 1980s, infiltrated and gradually took control of entire sections of this administration.

Colonization and Capture of the Administration

Although the colonization of the West Bank began a few weeks after the 1967 war, it was only after the 1973 war that the Gush Emunim movement, driven by a messianic vision, gave new impetus to colonial expansion. The Likud's rise to power in 1977 accentuated this shift. However, two events created tensions between the settlers and the Israeli state: the Elon Moreh affair (1979), in which the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the dismantling of a settlement deemed illegal, and the withdrawal from the Sinai following the Camp David Accords (1979-1982). Faced with these setbacks, the settlers adopted two strategies: radicalization and bureaucratic infiltration.

In 1981, two fundamental military orders brought about a silent transformation. The first granted the settlements a special legal status: they became enclaves governed by Israeli law. The second grants local settler councils powers equivalent to those of municipalities in Israel. At the same time, the Civil Administration was created to strengthen administrative control over the Palestinian population and circumvent the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) through cooperative elites called "village leagues." But very quickly, this Administration became a lever of power for the settlers themselves.

Israeli settlers in the Havat Ma'aon settlement, near Hebron

Israeli settlers in the Havat Ma'aon settlement, near Hebron

This shift is crucial: in the area of territorial planning, the settlers managed to take control of the High Planning Council, a decisive body in the declaration of state land, expropriations, and the construction of outposts.

The 2022 Shift: Annexation by Decree

The Israeli government formed at the end of 2022, dominated by the religious far right, is entering a new phase. Bezalel Smotrich, a leading figure of religious Zionism, was appointed Minister of Finance and additional minister in the Ministry of Defense, specifically responsible for the West Bank. In the memorandum of understanding he signed with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Smotrich acquired de facto control of the Civil Administration and COGAT.

This transfer of powers was unprecedented. It ended the military chain of command in place since 1967 and transferred key functions to a civilian authority, a member of the Israeli government. The Civil Administration became an administrative executive; its strategy was decided by the ministry controlled by Smotrich.

The appointment of Hillel Roth as civilian vice president of the Civil Administration completed this shift. Roth, a former executive of the NGO Honenu (which supports perpetrators of Jewish terrorism), a resident of violent settlements like Yitzhar, and close to the radical Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, a Talmudic school that symbolizes the fusion of administrative power and a messianic project.

De Jure Annexation and New Realities

The transfer of power to civilians radically changes the nature of the occupation. As long as the army was the formal actor, Israel could maintain the legal fiction of a temporary occupation. Now, it is civilian representatives, members of the government, who decide and implement policy on the ground. This amounts to directly governing a territory that international law still considers occupied.

"What we are seeing today in the West Bank is a normalization of the exception. Israeli governance is no longer military but civilian, no longer provisional but permanent, no longer hidden but acknowledged."

This new configuration has had immediate effects. We are witnessing an intensification of settler violence, facilitated by the lack of military oversight. Settlement expansion is accelerating: 43 new outposts were created in 2023, compared to an average of 7 per year previously. The budget allocated to settlements has doubled, in the midst of a war-related economic crisis. Planning is concentrated in the hands of figures like Roth, who can sign orders for expropriation, destruction, or the regularization of illegal construction.

A situation of permanent exception

What we are seeing today in the West Bank is a normalization of the exception. Israeli governance is no longer military but civilian, no longer provisional but permanent, no longer covert but assumed. Annexation does not need to be proclaimed: it is already there, in decrees, appointments, budgets, and bulldozers.

This shift raises a central political and moral question: what remains of international law when an occupation regime slowly transforms into a settler-colonial government without the international community reacting other than through communiqués?

The case of the West Bank illustrates not only the collapse of an international legal architecture, but also the effectiveness of a bureaucratic colonization strategy. A strategy that shifts borders without declaring them, governs without recognizing them, and annexes without saying so.

Source: YAANI