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4 October 2023 | View in browser
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New Supreme Court Litigation
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Over the last two months, Adalah filed several petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court (SCT) challenging laws that entrench segregation in housing; laws that discriminate against Palestinian prisoners on the basis of nationality; and policies that afford police immunity for the extrajudicial killings of Palestinians. This newsletter discusses these cases. We also commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the October 2000 killings.
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Deepening racial segregation and ‘Judaization’ in housing in Israel
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Entrance to Katzir, a "community town" that operates an admission committee. Photo: Yaa'kov / Wikimedia Commons
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In July 2023, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Cooperative Societies Ordinance, dubbed the "Admissions Committees Law". The original law permits “admissions committees” almost complete discretion to screen applicants seeking to live in hundreds of “community towns”. The new amendment expands the law’s scope, and over time, the Minister of Economy and Industry will be authorized to permit admissions committees in larger and larger towns. Admissions committees screen applicants based on their perceived "suitability” to the “social and cultural fabric” of the community, and this process over the years has excluded Palestinian citizens of Israel as well as other marginalized groups.
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The new law currently applies to more than 41% of all localities in Israel, and allows the operation of admissions committees in all regional councils, covering approximately 80% of the state’s territory.
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Adalah, in its own name and on behalf of nine civil society organizations, filed a petition to the SCT on 21 September 2023 demanding the cancellation of the new amendment, as well as the annulment of original law passed in 2011. The petitioners argued that the 2011 law succeeded in maintaining segregated towns throughout Israel, and that the new amendment, aimed at 'strengthening Jewish settlements', underscores its discriminatory purpose towards Palestinian citizens and will also further harm other marginalized groups, who have been excluded. The petitioners in the SCT case include a wide range of NGOs representing these groups such as Jews from Arab and Muslim countries; Ethiopian Jews; women from Israel’s geographic and social peripheries; and transgender and gender-variant people.
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GRANTING POLICE FORCES TOTAL IMPUNITY FOR THE KILLING OF PALESTINIANS
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Eyad Al-Hallaq's mother holds his photo. Photo: Shai Kendler / Wikimedia Commons
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On 5 September 2023, Adalah, together with Meezan, filed a petition on behalf of the parents of Eyad Al-Hallaq to the SCT against the State Attorney's decision not to appeal the Jerusalem District Court's ruling to acquit the Israeli Police officer who killed Al-Hallaq. Al-Hallaq was a 32-year-old autistic Palestinian man, who was murdered in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020, while he was making his way to the special needs school where he worked and studied. The Jerusalem District Court acquitted the Israeli Border Police officer who killed Eyad of reckless manslaughter after the Police Investigation Department decided, in a rare occurrence, in October 2020 to criminally charge him. The court decision essentially permits the use of lethal force by police based on an individual officer’s ‘subjective’ reading of the situation, and has the ability to almost entirely eliminate accountability for police in cases of killing Palestinians.
More than two decades after the October 2000 killings, Israel still grants sweeping impunity to its police and military forces when Palestinians are killed or wounded. Between 1-8 October 2000, Palestinian citizens of Israel held mass protests against the killing and wounding of scores of Palestinians by Israeli forces at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and in the West Bank. During the protests in Israel, later known as the October 2000 killings, Israeli police officers shot dead 13 young unarmed Palestinian men and wounded hundreds. Twenty-three years later, Israel has failed to hold its armed forces accountable for the killings, and police forces continue to violently suppress legitimate Palestinian demonstrations in Israel, while enjoying near blanket impunity.
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DENYING ADMINISTRATIVE RELEASE TO PALESTINIANS DESIGNATED BY ISRAEL AS 'SECURITY PRISONERS'
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Damon prison, north of Israel. Photo: Hanai / Wikimedia Commons
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On 31 August 2023, Adalah, together with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, filed a petition to the SCT on behalf of three Palestinian prisoners against an amendment to the Prisons Ordinance (Temporary Order) passed on 24 July 2023. The new law increases the period of time in which state authorities can grant prisoners early release for administrative reasons, with the goal of expanding prisoners' living spaces and reducing overcrowding, while excluding Palestinian ‘security prisoners’ from eligibility for early release for the same reasons.
The new amendment categorically denies Palestinian prisoners from any form of administrative release without any individual assessment or consideration of the duration of their sentence. For example, according to the law, a Jewish Israeli who committed a serious criminal, violent offense may be offered administrative release, while a Palestinian prisoner, who is classified as a ‘security prisoner’ but has harmed no one, is ineligible. The petitioners argued that this exclusion is made arbitrarily and for purely punitive purposes, leading to a discriminatory infringement on prisoners’ freedom, on the basis of nationality, and constitutes a breach of the right to equality. Creating separate tracks for release and conditions based on national identity aligns with the Israel's ongoing efforts to deepen and solidify a system of apartheid in imprisonment that is based on Jewish supremacy.
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WILL ISRAEL’S HIGH COURT DEFY THE FAR-RIGHT GOVERNMENT?
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The new Editor-in-Chief of +972 Magazine, Ghousoon Bisharat, interviewed Dr. Hassan Jabareen, Adalah’s General Director against the backdrop of the widely-publicized, high profile SCT hearing on petitions against the “reasonableness law”, which strips the SCT itself of judicial review powers over ministers’ decisions. Dr. Jabareen’s analysis stands out amidst the extensive media coverage and analysis of the judicial overhaul bills, as he speaks of the implication of these laws on Palestinians.
Will Israel’s High Court defy the far-right government?
+972 Magazine, 15 September 2023
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Stand with Justice, Support Adalah
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