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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
The minister of defense held responsibility for administration
and security of the Arab population of the occupied territories.
Until 1981, actual command passed from the minister of defense to
the Department of Military Government, a functional command within
the general staff, and from this department to the regional
commanders of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in their roles as
military governors. The military governors exercised primarily a
coordinating function because day-to-day operations in the
territories were carried out not by military officers, but by
civilian representatives of the various ministries.
In 1981 Israel established a separate civilian administration
in the territories to exercise the civil powers of the military
government. This administration lacked authority to enact
legislation. The civilian officials who carried out these executive
functions nominally drew their authority from the military
government; in fact, they were part of the permanent staff of
Israeli ministries and received directives from their ministerial
superiors. This relinquishment of responsibility by the Ministry of
Defense and its assumption by Israeli civil authorities gathered
momentum under governments controlled by the right-wing Likud Bloc,
whose policies sought to achieve de facto annexation by
subordinating all civilian matters in the occupied territories to
ministries of the government in Jerusalem.
A civilian "coordinator of activities" in the Ministry of
Defense acted in the name of the minister of defense to advise,
guide, coordinate, and supervise all government ministries, state
institutions, and public authorities in the occupied territories.
In 1988 the coordinator was Shmuel Goren. Neither the minister of
defense nor the coordinator of activities, however, had veto powers
over officials answerable to civilian ministries in Jerusalem.
Local government in areas of the West Bank occupied by
Palestinians consisted of twenty-five towns having municipal status
and eighty-two village councils operating under the Jordanian
Village Management Law. After 1981, when the Israeli civil
administration deposed nine West Bank mayors, Israeli officials ran
most municipalities. Under them, Arabs held the vast majority of
government administrative and staff positions. Until the latter
part of 1988, when King Hussein cut off all funds to the West Bank,
Jordan paid the salaries of about 5,000 of these civil servants.
The remaining 16,000, who were mostly teachers, had their Israeli
salaries supplemented by a Jordanian bonus averaging US$100
monthly.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank were incorporated into
fourteen local authorities. These authorities functioned under
special military government legislation identical to the local
authorities legislation that applied in Israel. The Ministry of
Interior supervised their budgets and in general the West Bank
settlements functioned as though they were in Israel proper.
Data as of December 1988
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