Press Release

ADALAH PRESS RELEASE
13 October 2010

Adalah Holds 5th Annual Arab Law Students' Conference on “The Right to Protest”

From 7-9 October 2010, Adalah held its 5th Annual Arab Law Students' Conference at Wahat al-Salaam/Neve Shalom. About 60 Arab students studying law at Israeli colleges and universities, among them Haifa University, Tel Aviv University, and The Hebrew University, came together as a group for three days for a series of legal lectures and workshops led by Arab and Jewish academics, lawyers and activists focused on the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Overall the students' reacted enthusiastically to the conference and many students expressed a strong interest in helping determine the themes of next year's event. The success of Adalah's 5th Annual Arab Law Students' Conference underscores the importance of providing young Arab law students with the largely absent perspective of lawyering as members of the Arab minority within a discriminatory legal system.

Tariq Khateeb, 23, a law student at Haifa University, commented, “I enjoyed and benefited from all the panels, especially by learning about the Israeli legal system from the Arab/Palestinian perspective rather than the Israeli perspective we receive at the university. I acquired basic legal skills to deal with the challenges that we face as Arab law students and future lawyers in Israel. In addition, it was great to have the chance to meet many new students, professionals and academics involved in issues that Arabs face as minority in Israel.”

The conference began with a tour of Jerusalem led by Khalil Tufkji and Mahmoud Bilal, who gave the students an in-depth account of the many problems faced by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, including poverty and inability to obtain building permits. The students were taken to the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, in which the community is fighting home demolitions and a takeover of the area by Jewish families. The students were also able to speak to members of the Palestinian Legislative Council whose permanent residency status has been revoked by the Israeli Interior Minister due to their political associations and membership in a “foreign parliament”. Many of the students stated their appreciation for the opportunity to see and learn about the complex and urgent situation of Arab East Jerusalem first hand, something that cannot be taught in the classroom.

At the conference site that evening, the students attended the opening panel discussion led by Adalah's General Director, Attorney Hassan Jabareen on “Cause Lawyering and Civil Society Activism”. Dr. Raef Zreik of the Minerva Center, Tel Aviv University gave a provocative lecture in which he stressed the divide between political and legal avenues of activism and expression. Next, Dr. Neta Ziv, Director of the Cegla Clinical Law Programs at the Tel Aviv University Law School took the students through a chronology of the evolution of cause lawyering in Israel, focusing on the role played by Arab lawyers and the October 2000 events, which allowed Adalah to become a more central actor in Arab civil society in Israel. As a result, she argued Arab civil society became more active in confronting the legal challenges that face the Arab national minority in Israel. Hadas Ziv, the Director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel discussed the role of medical ethics and stressed the multiple avenues through which to engender change, advising the students not to limit themselves to purely legal means. Dr. Ishai Menuchim discussed his new book on activism and civil society.  

The second day began with a panel on “October 2000: Ten Years without Accountability.” Dr. Mahmoud Yazbak of Haifa University and Chair of the Board of Directors of Adalah provided the students with an historical account of political repression and state violence against Palestinians. He stated that the October 2000 events differed from previous incidents due to the unprecedented collective reaction on the part of the Arab minority and internal societal changes that took place in their aftermath. Next Adalah Attorney Orna Kohn took the students through the series of actions and challenges undertaken by Adalah in seeking accountability for the killings from the Israeli legal system. Suheila Ghattas, a law student at Haifa University responded to the lecture as follows, “Orna was great as she presented the facts very clearly and clarified how the law was used to cover up the crimes that took place after the October 2000 events, rather than to hold its violators to account”. Dr. Hunida Ghanem, the General Director of Madar – The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies, then spoke of the importance of documenting the October 2000 events in order to keep the issue of accountability active in the collective memory of Arab citizens of Israel.

During the third panel on “Suppression of Popular Movements and Protest Demonstrations,” criminal defense lawyer Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein spoke about the tools of repression used by the Israeli government. He discussed how the State of Israel's inherently racist character creates the conditions for political repression against Arab society in general. Political activist Ayman Odeh then shared his personal experiences of political persecution. Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker stressed the importance of interpreting the restrictions of political freedoms as a systemic problem that permeates all Israeli state institutions, while drawing interesting comparisons with systemic patterns of discrimination against African-Americans in the US.

The following panel on “Student Movements and Freedom of Expression in Israeli Universities,” opened with a lecture by Attorney Auni Banna of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel focused on the history of freedom of speech and its importance in a democratic society. He then emphasized the repression of Arab students' right to freedom of expression on university campuses; Weaam Baloum, a law student at Haifa University, then spoke specifically about the challenges that Arab students face at Haifa University. The next session featured a lecture and film screening, in association with Israeli Social TV, at which the students were shown videos produced by this alternative news source, and learned about the importance of the various means of documenting human rights violations.

The conference closed with a series of workshops led by human rights lawyers and activists. The workshop themes included international protest movements; the suppression of the rights of freedom of expression and demonstration in East Jerusalem and throughout the rest of the West Bank; protesting against the policy of home demolitions; and popular movements in mixed cities in Israel.

Program of the Conference

Photos of the Conference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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