The Wages of Crying Wolf

Israel's Supreme Court has overruled the Defense Minister's attempt to block Palestinian participation in a joint memorial day ceremony hosted by the group "Combatants for Peace". This is the third time the Defense Ministry has sought to block Palestinians from entering Israel to participate in this event, each time citing "security" concerns. Each time the Court has overruled the ministry, and each time there have been no security incidents of note. The Court this time was reportedly sharper with its words than normal, calling out the Defense Minister for ignoring the prior rulings.

It seems pretty obvious that the putative "security" concerns are in fact a fig leaf for the actual rationale for trying to bar Palestinian participation in this event, which is political opposition by the Israeli right to anything that suggests parity or unity amongst Israelis and Palestinians. In that register, the attempt to bar Palestinains from participating is just another iteration of the right's attempt to leverage state power to censor messages and causes it disapproves of; yet another marker of the Israeli right's embrace of thuggish illiberalism.

But we should also take note of this case for another reason: It is relatively decisive proof that, at least some of the time, the Israeli government lies about its security needs.

We often hear arguments to the effect of "we can't second-guess Israel's own assessment of its security situation." There are, to be sure, good reasons to show this sort of deference (American courts, too, tend to be deferential to the political branches on questions of military or national security). Yet this deference is dependent on good faith -- that the invocation of "security" is a genuine one, not just political cover.

The Combatants for Peace event is a crystal-clear example that this trust cannot be taken for granted. It's not just that the "security" invocation always rang suspect on its face, given the raging right-wing attacks on the event which made no bones about their political character. But also, the event keeps happening notwithstanding the alleged "security threat" it poses, and the threat keeps on not panning out. We are seeing, in real-time, the falsification of the claim. And yet the government keeps on making these frivolous and disproven cries of "security"!

Such wolf-crying can and should diminish the government's credibility when it makes similar cries in other contexts. That's unfortunate, because there are absolutely are still wolves about. But it nonetheless is the case that the Combatants for Peace case is absolutely a measure of proof that Israeli assertions of security necessity cannot always be taken a face-value. They can and sometimes must be second-guessed.