Tag: High Court of Justice

Release Abdallah Abu Rahmah and other leaders and members of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements

Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

29 December 2009

Bilin_0 — Abdallah with FFIPP students at the site of the Apartheid Wall in Bil'in

Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a leader of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, was arrested at his home during a military operation in Ramallah by the Israeli Army on December 10.

FFIPP interns and members of faculty delegations know Abdallah Abu Rahmah well. For the past two years, he has received our students and faculty at his home in Bil’in and has taken them to see the Separation Wall on the village’s land.

Abdallah is currently in military prison and is being charged with illegal weapons possession, in response to his creative exhibition of discharged tear gas canisters, bullets and sound grenades used by the Israeli military in Bil’in against non-violenet protestors. As many of our students and faculty have witnessed, the exhibition was created for educational purposes and does not have live ammunitions but only the remains of weapon used by the Israeli Army.

In th e last 20 years Israel confiscated more than 50% of Bil’in land for Israeli settlements and the construction of the separation wall. Supported by Israeli and international activists, Bil’in residents have peacefully demonstrated every Friday in front of the Separation Wall on their land for the past five years.

Under international law the confiscation of land in Bilin for the construction of the settlements on the village’s land is illegal. The ongoing construction of the Wall is also condemned by the UN and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 2007 the Israeli High Court of Justice ordered the government to reroute a section of its separation barrier that is on the village’s land.

Abdallah’s arrest appears to be part of an ongoing campaign conducted by the Israeli military to undermine the efforts of residents of Bil’in and leaders of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, in an attempt to discourage them from continuing their non-violent struggle and spreading their non-violent, creative and inclusive struggle to other villages. Since June 2009, 31 residents of Bil’in have been detained by the Israeli military. Recently, other leaders of the grassroots and non-violent Palestinian movement for the removal of the Wall and for freedom have been arrested, such as Jamal Juma’ and Mohammad Othman.

By imprisoning leaders of the non-violent struggle against the confiscation of Palestinian land, what is the message that the Israeli military intends to convey? If the leaders of this struggle, who work openly and jointly with Israeli and international peace activists, are taken away by the Israeli military, what options are left open to a new generation of Palestinians who desire to fight for their freedom and their dignity?

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who met with Abdallah Abu Rahma last summer during a visit to Israel, under the auspices of The Elders, a group of global leaders formed by former South African president Nelson Mandela, condemned Abu Rahma’s arrest and indictment.

Archbishop Tutu said that he and his fellow delegation members – who included former American president Jimmy Carter, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland – were “impressed by [Abdallah Abu Rahma] commitment to peaceful political action, and their success in challenging the wall that unjustly separates the people of Bil’in from their land and their olive trees.” He called Abu Rahma’s arrest and indictment “part of an escalation by the Israeli military to try to break the spirit of the people of Bil’in.”

All of us who met with Abdallah Abu Rahmah in Bilin share Desmond Tutu’s evaluation and condemnation.

We urge students and faculty to

1) Send a message of support and solidarity to the Bilin Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements,

2) Contact Israeli embassies to request the release of Palestinian popular leaders from Israeli prisons,

3) Ask President Obama to put pressure on Israel to release the leaders of the non-vilolent struggle against the Wall and settlements

28 kilometers of distilled apartheid

Gideon Levy | Haaretz

29 December 2009

Palestinian, Israeli and foreign protesters run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration on Highway 443 in 2008. (AP)

This highway has told the whole story. They pave a road, expropriate Palestinian land and the High Court of Justice approves the expropriation, in its words, “provided that it is done for the sake of the local population.”

Afterwards they prevent the “local population” from using the road, and finally they build a wall with drawings of creeks and meadows so we don’t see and don’t know that we are driving on an apartheid road, that we are traveling on the axis of evil.

Apartheid? What are you talking about? It’s just a freeway to the capital, because that’s how we like it best. Going (quickly) along with the occupation and feeling like there is none. That way the highway has fulfilled another secret national wish – that they get out of our faces.

How many of the masses of travelers on this high road to the capital have looked to their left and right? How many of them have noticed the 12 roads blocked by iron roadblocks and piles of garbage? (Is there another country that blocks roads with garbage?) And what about the 22 confined and concealed villages alongside the road? How many people have asked themselves how it is possible that a road that was paved in the heart of the Land of Palestine has no Palestinians traveling on it? How many have noticed the sign that leads to the “Ofer [army] camp”, another whitewashed name for a detention facility or the hundreds of prisoners detained there, some without trial?

How many have observed the inhabitants trudging over the rocky ground to get to the neighboring village? It’s 28 kilometers of distilled apartheid: the Jews on top on the freeway becoming of the lords of the land. Palestinians down below, going on foot to the Al-Tira village girls’ school, for example, through a dark, moldy tunnel.

I, too, have deliberated more than once whether to take Highway 1 with all of its traffic jams or 443 with all of its injustices. In my transgressions, sometimes I have opted for the injustices. It’s like shooting and crying. First you kill and then you are struck with grief over what you have done. I have driven and cried.

The High Court of Justice has again proven how essential it is. Too late and too little, and strangely imposing a delay of five months in the implementation of its ruling. It is not a beacon of justice with regard to everything related to the occupation, but it is at least a small flashlight shining a faint beam: beware, apartheid.

Justices Dorit Beinisch and Uzi Vogelman should be commended. They have reminded us what had been forgotten. There are judges in Jerusalem, and periodically they even come out against the injustice of the occupation. See you in another five months. By then maybe the state will find a range of rationales and excuses not to enforce the ruling. Palestinian cars on Highway 443? You’re making me (and the army) laugh.

High Court: Gaza student cannot complete studies in West Bank

Amira Hass | Haaretz

9 December 2009

The High Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday to deny a Palestinian student from Gaza who has been studying in Bethlehem permission to complete her university degree in the West Bank.

Berlanty Azzam, 22, has been in the West Bank since 2005 and has only two months of studies left in order to complete her Bachelor’s degree in business administration. In late October, however, the Israeli authorities expelled her back to Gaza claiming that that she was illegally staying in the West Bank.

Azzam petitioned against her expulsion with the assistance of Gisha, a legal center for freedom of movement, but the High Court accepted the Israeli authorities’ decision to deny Azzam a chance to remain in the West Bank to continue her education.

The authorities did not claim security charges against Azzam.

Regarding the assertion that she is an illegal alien in the West Bank, Gisha said that she had moved to the region legally with an entrance permit into Israel issued to her by the IDF commander on the scene after a meticulous security check.

The High Court accepted Israel’s claim that Azzam entered the West Bank illegally, due to the fact that the permit entitled her entrance into Jerusalem, not the West Bank.

During the four years she lived and studied in the West Bank, Azzam placed several requests to change her address from Gaza to Bethlehem.

According to the Oslo accord, the Palestinian Authority has the power to change its’ citizen’s addresses in their identity cards, and is only required to notify the Israel authorities.

But ever since the accord was implemented, Israel has refused to accept the PA’s authority to register change of address from Gaza to the West Bank, and has retained a monopoly over the acceptance or denial of an address change request.

Since the year 2000, Israel has also refused to allow Gaza residents to study in the West Bank. It is believed that there are currently over 25,000 Palestinians who were born in Gaza and are currently living in the West Bank, all of whom have been disallowed to change their address on their identification certificates.

Most of them have been living in the West Bank for many years. They have raised their families there, and have been working in the region, but are under the constant threat of expulsion.

Bil’in: Undercovers arrest Palestinian youth at his workplace

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

19 November 2009

In an escalation of the recent arrest campaign conducted by the Israeli military in attempt to crush the popular struggle against the Wall in the village, an undercover army unit invaded Bil’in this morning and arrested a local youth, 19 year old Mohammad Yassin.

In the morning hours of Thursday, 19 November 2009, a civilian Isuzu pickup with undercover soldiers dressed as Palestinians, drove into the village of Bil’in, searching for residents suspected of organizing and participating in the village’s weekly demonstrations. At around 9am, the soldiers arrived at the garage where Yassin works and arrested him. The arrest involved the beating of Yassin himself, as well as of his brother and his mother, who assumed that the disguised soldiers were just random by-passers attacking their kin.

The use of the undercover army units to capture ‘wanted’ people that are suspected of nothing else than participating in and planning of grassroots demonstrations, represent an escalation of the arrest campaign the army is conducting against the residents of the village. In addition to Yassin, another 27 Bil’in residents were arrested for their involvement in the demonstrations since the 23 June 2009. Among them is Adeeb Abu Rahma, who has been held in detention for more than four months under a charge of ‘incitement’ – a euphemism for organizing demonstrations.

Recently, attorney Gaby Lasky, who represents Bil’in’s detainees, was informed by the military prosecution that the army intends to put an end to the demonstrations through use legal procedures against demonstrators. Lasky stated today that “This is a blatant example of political persecution using legal means, because the charges and the arrests are being carried out not for legal purposes but with political motivations. It is important to remember that it is the state that is in contempt of a High Court of Justice ruling, which affirmed two years ago that it is the demonstrators who have justice on their side, and instructed to move the route of the Wall in the area – something that has not been done yet.”

The secretary of the village council and member of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, Mohammed Khatib, stated that “the Army is determined to crush the popular resistance but we will continue to demand our rights even if we are all forced to do so from inside military prison cells. Even the Israeli court ruled that the Wall on our land is not legal and has to be dismantled. Despite this, not only has the Wall not moved even an inch, but the Army comes to imprison us for struggling for our land, while it itself is breaking the law – its own law.

Israel sees court rulings on Palestinian land as mere ‘recommendations’

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

13 October 2009

So what if the Supreme Court rules? In Israel those decisions are just recommendations, especially if they deal with Palestinian land. In most enlightened democratic countries, saying that decisions of the courts obligate the state authorities is like stating that the sun rises in the east. But that may not be so for Israel.

Last week, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch had to state that “rulings of this court are not mere recommendations, and the state is obliged to abide by them and to execute them with the necessary speed and efficiency, according to the circumstances of the matter.”

The head of the judicial system added: “In the case before us, the state took the law into its own hands.”

The case dates back to June 2006. The High Court of Justice at that time responded to a petition from Hamoked – the Center for the Defense of the Individual, and instructed the Defense Ministry to move the route of the separation fence near the villages of Azzun and Nabi Ilyas in the northern West Bank.

Aharon Barak, who was then president of the Supreme Court, stated in the ruling that “the petition points to an event that cannot be tolerated according to which the information that was supplied to the court did not reflect all of the considerations that were taken into account by the decision makers.”

He was referring to the fact that the Defense Ministry did not reveal to the court that the route of the fence was congruent with the map of the plan to expand the settlement of Tzufim at the expense of Palestinian lands. The prosecution promised that the fence would be dismantled within six months from the completion of the fence along the new route.

It can be assumed that the officials of the Defense Ministry understood that when the court ordered that the injustice toward the residents of the Palestinian villages be corrected “in the shortest time possible” it was not referring to three and a half years.

In any case, from Beinisch’s remarks about a ruling she handed down during a process of contempt of court, it was evident that this was not her interpretation of Barak’s ruling.

“It is not possible to put up with conduct of this kind,” she scolded the representatives of the prosecution and she ordered the state to pay the petitioners’ court costs of NIS 20,000. This sum was added to another NIS 50,000 which the taxpayers paid when the original ruling was handed down as well as the salaries of the lawyers from the prosecution who were sent to defend against the contempt of court ruling.

Before closing the case, Beinisch stated that in countries where there is a rule of law, a political and public storm would have arisen over this.

“In this case before us, the state took the law into its own hands,” she said.

And this is not the only case where the Defense Ministry has made a mockery of court decisions relating to the route of the fence. More than two years ago, the court ordered the state to consider an alternative to the fence’s route that was robbing the village of Bil’in of lands in favor of the settlement of Modi’in Ilit, and to do so “within a reasonable period of time.”

In the ruling that was handed down after 15 months, Beinisch wrote that the alternative that was chosen was not in accordance with the court decision and she ordered the state to abide by it “without further delay.”

Since then 10 months have elapsed, the residents of the village and their supporters have demonstrated, the police have used tear gas, and the fence is still in place.

Maskit Handel of the Association of Civil Rights In Israel recently documented no fewer than eight cases where the state was, or still is, in contempt of rulings handed down by the High Court of Justice since 2006. Among other things, she found two decisions relating to the fortification of schools in communities along the border with the Gaza Strip, three decisions instructing the state to build 245 classrooms in East Jerusalem, and a decision to stop making the granting of work permits for migrant workers dependent on their working for a single employer.

Enlightened rule

An affidavit submitted to the High Court of Justice a few weeks ago (in response to a petition) by the Defense Minister’s adviser on settlement affairs, Eitan Broshi, indicates that from Ehud Barak’s point of view, anything relating to Palestinian rights, and not only the high court’s rulings, are nothing more than a recommendation.

The affidavit states that the defense minister has decided, for the time being, to refrain from carrying out demolition orders against nine homes in Ofra that were built on private Palestinian land. The explanation no doubt convinced the Palestinians who lost their lands that they are living under an enlightened rule of occupation.

“There is no point in separating this individual case or any other without seeing the general picture and the system of circumstances under which the respondents are acting,” the affidavit stated.

And what is the general picture? Two dozen outposts and numerous illegal homes? And what does the phrase “the system of circumstances” mean? Fear of the settlers?

Daniel Ben Simon, the faction chairman of Barak’s party, Labor, declared during a tour of the outposts organized by Peace Now at the end of August, that if they are not vacated by the start of the winter session of the Knesset, “the Labor party will reconsider its continued membership of the government.”

No special excitement could be seen among the factions on the right when the winter session opened Monday. However informed sources promise that this time they are serious. The sources reveal that in return for the pass the prime minister received with regard to freezing settlement construction, the defense minister has promised the Americans that there will be a speedy evacuation of the outposts, and he has even shown them the schedule.