Biden administration ‘incredibly concerned’ after Israel ends use of emergency powers to jail Jews without trial

US State Department expresses dismay after Israeli defense minister ends controversial use of arrest without trial as a preemptive measure against Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria.

By World Israel News Staff

The Biden administration this week expressed dismay after the Israeli government ended the controversial use of emergency powers to detain Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria without trial as a preemptive security measure.

Last Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz (Likud) announced that he had instructed his ministry to halt the practice of using administrative arrest or detention against Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria.

“In the current climate, where Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria face significant threats of Palestinian terrorism, supported by the Iranian axis of evil seeking to establish a terror front against Israel, and where international sanctions unfairly target settlers and settlement organizations, it is not appropriate for the State of Israel to take such a severe step,” Katz said.

Katz emphasized that police and the Shin Bet internal security agency would still be able to use standard law enforcement methods to prevent criminal acts, or to apprehend suspects and bring them to justice.

The U.S. State Department, however, expressed grave concerns regarding the change, saying it was one of the few effective “tools” used by the Israeli government to crack down on “illegal activity” by “extremist Israeli settlers.”

“We see the announcement that administrative detentions will no longer be applied to extremist Israeli settlers as a rolling back of one of the limited tools that was effectively being used by the Israeli Government to rein in this illegal activity,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday.

The Biden administration, he continued is “incredibly concerned about the increasing extremist violence in the West Bank, including assaults on civilians, forced displacement of Palestinian communities, and the willful destruction of homes and farms.”

“We have called on the Government of Israel repeatedly to take further actions to deter extremist settler violence and to hold those engaging in it accountable.”

Administrative detentions are a holdover from the British Mandate period, implemented as a emergency regulation beginning in 1945.

Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, the policy of holding individuals in prison for up to six months at a time without trial was continued as an emergency measure to combat Arab terrorism and other immediate security threats.

While administrative measures have been primarily used against Arab terrorists, they have also been employed at times against Jews – including American citizens.