This article was originally published by Haaretz and is republished with permission.

Palestinians wait to cross the Huwwara checkpoint, south of the West Bank city of Nablus. (Michael Phillips, IMEU)

Amid cabinet members' expressions of shock in response to a female settler seen abusing a Hebron family came this comment by Ephraim Sneh: "The laws of the state are not being implemented in the city with due haste, particularly regarding Israeli citizens." The deputy defense minister's words were meant as criticism of how the security forces impose law and order in Hebron, but they contained the idea that the problem lies not in the "laws of the state," but only in their "implementation."

To which laws and which state was the deputy minister referring? After all, Hebron has not been annexed to Israel, and ostensibly is subject to military rule. But in the 40th year of the occupation, a deputy minister can disregard such legal nuances and refer to Hebron as if it were annexed territory - just like any Israeli community, Israeli vehicle or Jew in the territories can be referred to as Israel's.

The education minister's directive to restore the Green Line to textbook maps stirred much response, showing that many of those who support the move believe there is an essential difference between the two sides of the Green Line: With the exception of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Israel did not impose its laws on the territories on the other side.

Nothing could be more mistaken. The difference is solely in how the annexation is accomplished. Unlike the declared, comprehensive annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, where the principle was set first and applied later, here the opposite method has been taken: annexation in a piecemeal, selective fashion until, after a few decades, the sum of the parts amount to full annexation despite the facade of "non-imposition of the law."

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This fiction is convenient for all concerned. The left can keep on deluding itself that the Green Line marks open possibilities, and that rule in the territories is "military" and therefore temporary. The right can emphatically insist upon a "declarative implementation" of the law and meanwhile enjoy selective annexation, which applies only to Jews - wherein lies its cleverness.

The annexation for Jews alone has created a dual system under which rule of law is determined based on an individual's or a community's national identity. The "local" population is subject to only the original law, as amended in thousands of military injunctions. The right to choose is reserved for Jews. When it's convenient, they are Israeli citizens in every way. When it's less convenient, like when it comes to matters of higher education and especially infrastructure planning, they are subject to the local law. The latter lags behind the Israeli law, and therefore allows for manipulations.

The confrontation between the female settler and the Palestinian woman from Hebron was a clash between two parallel worlds: The Jewish woman possesses all the rights of a citizen of a free country, who is entitled to the protection of its security forces. On the other side is a woman from an occupied people, who is also entitled to protection. However, the army of the occupation forgot long ago that under international law, its role is to protect the "protected population." The army has become the settlers' militia and views the local people as hostile elements.

It's easy to condemn the vulgarity of the settler from Hebron, and it's easy to dismiss the Jewish enclave there as a gang of violent thugs. But they are only weeds that sprout from the rotten ground of the cruel regime that prevails beyond the Green Line. It's a regime based on ethnic discrimination and separation, double standards and an absence of the rule of law.

Just which law does the deputy minister wish to see applied with "all due haste"? That of the settler woman or of the Palestinian woman? In a place where laws differ and discriminate based on national and personal identities, no law prevails. What do we expect of soldiers and police officers? Not to be influenced by orders that instruct them to act in a discriminatory and selective fashion?

The outrage over the woman's crude tirade is just a distraction from the reality that prevails beyond the Green Line, where life is ostensibly normal. It won't be long before it's the liberals who are seeking to have the Green Line erased from the maps, once it has been permanently transformed from a symbol of the aspiration for peace to a line delineating the realms of apartheid.