Israeli protests cast light on laws discriminating against Palestinians
Israel has passed many laws that codify bias
against Palestinians but did not meet the same uproar as the judicial overhaul
bill.
By Dalia Hatuqa
Published On 27 Jul 202327 Jul 2023
The passing of a bill this week by
the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, restricting the Supreme Court’s powers has
garnered domestic opposition and even international calls for Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government to reconsider.
The push for the bill, months in the making, has
brought out thousands of Israelis to the streets,
with the country’s opposition rallying around a call to “protect democracy”,
and maintaining that the present government and its control of the Knesset mark
a departure from the norms of Israeli parliamentary democracy.
Palestinians, watching on, may have a different
opinion. Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories rarely, if ever,
receives censure in the Knesset. Instead, many bills are passed – relatively
unnoticed – that continue to subjugate and discriminate against Palestinian
citizens of Israel, as well as those living in occupied East Jerusalem, the
occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Sari Bashi, programme director at Human Rights Watch,
said Israeli law codifies racial
discrimination against Palestinian citizens of
Israel, and facilitates institutional privilege of Israeli Jews over
Palestinians.
“I respect the pro-democracy protestors engaging in
mass demonstrations against the further erosion of judicial independence in
Israel, and many are also protesting Israeli occupation and apartheid. But
let’s please be clear about the Israeli ‘democracy’ they are trying to
protect,” she tweeted.
Here are just some of the laws Israel has passed in
recent years that experts have said codify discrimination against
Palestinians and restrict their rights but
that have not met the same public uproar:
Expansion of the Admissions Committees Law
On Tuesday, the Knesset expanded a 2010 law that
allows communities to screen and reject applicants deemed “unsuitable to
the[ir] social and cultural makeup”. This, observers have said, essentially
maked it easier for towns to prevent Palestinian citizens of Israel from moving
to Jewish-majority towns. Many of these towns were built on or near Palestinian
towns and villages that were depopulated before or during the 1948 Nakba, after
their inhabitants were expelled or fled.
“The passage of the ‘Admissions Committees’ law in the
Knesset yesterday, which effectively authorises segregation in Israeli towns,
is but the latest reminder that principles of democracy and equality have been
absent in Israel long before this most recent judicial overhaul,” said Yousef
Munayyer, a senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C.
“From NGO laws targeting human rights organisations,
laws around Palestinian family unification, laws around the right to boycott
and laws around the right to commemorate Palestinian history, the assault on
liberal principles in Israel has been a very long road, which was paved by some
of the same political figures screaming about democracy today,” Munayyer told
Al Jazeera.
Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People
In July 2018, the Knesset voted to pass a law that
defines Israel as “the national home of the
Jewish people”, with Hebrew as its official
language and Jerusalem – including the illegally occupied eastern side – as its
capital.
The bill denies Palestinians any national rights and
further entrenched racial discrimination against them by declaring that “the
right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique
to the Jewish people”.
According to the Haifa-based Adalah legal rights
centre, the law “transforms discrimination into a constitutional, systematic
and institutional principle, and into a basic element of the foundations of
Israeli law”.
The law states that Jewish settlement is “a national
value” and that the state will “encourage and promote its establishment and
consolidation” – essentially giving it carte blanche to settle more land in the
occupied territories – the Golan Heights included, or in Israel proper.
Upholding the 2008 Citizenship Law
In July 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the
state can revoke citizenship over offences constituting a “breach of loyalty”,
providing the government with legal mechanisms to strip Palestinians of their
citizenship and fundamental rights and deport them, after rendering
them stateless.
In August 2017, the Haifa District Court revoked the citizenship of Alaa
Zayoud, a Palestinian citizen of Israel serving time in
prison after being convicted of attempted murder. This was the first time an
Israeli court has ruled that an individual’s citizenship be revoked, according
to Adalah.
“There has never been a request to revoke the
citizenship of a Jewish citizen, even when Jewish citizens were involved in
serious and grave crimes,” Adalah noted, highlighting the case of Yigal Amir,
the assassin of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a request to revoke his citizenship in 1996,
but upheld the ruling against Zayoud.
Law banning BDS supporters from entering Israel
In March 2017, parliament voted to ban any Palestinians or foreign
nationals if they, or the organisations they belong
to, publicly endorse the boycott of Israel or its illegal settlements.
The law, with its vague wording, also has implications
for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem whose partners live with them on
Israeli military-issued permits or a temporary residence status.
If those spouses are vocal about supporting BDS – the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions movement – they could be vulnerable to
having their status or permits revoked based on their political opinions.
BDS is a campaign to push Israel into withdrawing from
all occupied Palestinian and Arab territory, and to give its Palestinian
citizens the same rights as its Jewish ones.
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