The Israeli ministerial committee on legislation approved a bill criminalizing the filming of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank June 17. Proponents of the legislation, introduced by Knesset member Robert Ilatov of Yisrael Beitenu, argue that it is designed to protect soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces operating alongside Palestinian residents, or as Ilatov himself phrased it, to prevent “filming meant to undermine the spirit of the IDF soldiers [and of] residents of the State of Israel or to damage state security.” The version of the bill approved by the ministerial committee imposes jail terms of five to 10 years on violators.

The center-right Kulanu of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, considered the government coalition’s liberal standard-bearer, supports the bill. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit informed the ministers prior to their vote that he opposes the law because it is unconstitutional. Nonetheless, the ministers gave Ilatov the green light to present the bill for an initial vote by the Knesset plenum on June 20, with a promise that its language would be amended before it comes up for further approval to satisfy Mandelbilt's reservations. However, even if changes are introduced along the way, the bill’s authors clearly have one goal in mind: to conceal the goings-on in West Bank areas from the Israeli and international public.

Ilatov, the chair of the Yisrael Beitenu Knesset faction, is known as the executor of legislative initiatives by his party leader, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. Immediately following approval of the bill, Liberman tweeted a harsh attack reminiscent of oppressive regimes against human rights organizations and leftist activists who document soldiers’ activities in the territories. “Israeli soldiers are under attack from Israel haters and terror supporters at home seeking to discredit, humiliate and harm them. Let’s put an end to this!” he wrote. Liberman and his faction recently increased their broadsides and legislation directed against Israel’s Arab minority in a bid to prop up their party’s stagnant polling figures. Nonetheless, all the members of the ministerial committee from all six coalition parties voted in favor of the bill.

Several hours before the vote, settlement supporters injured 11 police officers while protesting a court order to demolish buildings erected illegally in the northern West Bank outpost of Tapuach. Neither Liberman nor Education Minister Naftali Bennett spoke out against the violence directed at police. If the government adopts laws preventing the documentation of events in the occupied territories, they will be able to not only continue ignoring events that embarrass the political right, but conceal them altogether. Ilatov’s current bill “takes care” of IDF soldiers, but could be expanded to include all security forces in the West Bank so that settler violence against police forces will remain hidden from public view, too.