Israel Matzav

If this winds up in the High Court of Justice...

If this winds up in Israel's High Court of Justice, we could have a major problem.

The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (our version of the ACLU) has called on Defense Minister Ehud Barak to allow the 'Palestinians' to 'demonstrate' in September. In particular, they want the army and the police to apply civilian rather than military law in dealing with the 'demonstrations' that are likely to happen.

In a letter to Barak, Yakir and Jaraisy expressed concerns that security forces have acted disproportionately in the recent past with Palestinian and Arab- Israeli protesters, including during the Nakba protests in May.

They also slammed the government for what they say is its “apparent nonrecognition of the rights of citizens to demonstrate and protest, and exercise their right to freedom of expression” with regard to country-wide housing demonstrations.

According to ACRI’s lawyers, existing military legislation governing protests and demonstrations in the West Bank denies Palestinian residents the right to demonstrate.

The Order Regarding the Prohibition of Acts of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda, issued in 1967, stipulates that demonstrations and rallies in Judea and Samaria cannot take place without a permit issued by a military commander.

The penalty for doing so is a heavy fine or ten years’ imprisonment.

“The situation, which negates in practice the freedom to protest, violates Israel’s obligations under international law to respect and protect the right to freedom of expression and protest, including the right to demonstrate,” said Yakir and Jaraisy. Palestinian residents of the West Bank have no access to central government, so peaceful protests are the only way they can make their voices heard, they said.

In their call, they referred to recommendations made by the Or Commission in the aftermath of the October 2000 protests in the North, during which 13 Arab-Israeli demonstrators were killed as demonstrations turned violent. The commission urged security forces to refrain from using disproportionate force against protesters in future demonstrations.

They asked Barak to issue security forces with guidelines on how to deal with Palestinian civilian protests, including explicit instructions not to fire on unarmed protesters and to minimize civilian casualties.

“Palestinian civilians taking part in protests should not be treated like enemy combatants, and the army should not be allowed to open fire on them,” they said.

ACRI said its letter to the minister is in response to reports that the government intends to deploy large numbers of security forces to deal with the mass protests and demonstrations expected to occur in September.

As reported in The Jerusalem Post, the IDF has drawn up plans to issue emergency call-up orders to reservists who might be needed to beef up security along Israel’s borders next month.

IDF sources said the call-up orders would be issued per operational requirements, but in the meantime it was training reservists in crowd-control techniques.

The IDF has also embarked on a multimillion dollar procurement plan for new riot control equipment to deal with possible protests along the country’s borders following the Palestinian bid for statehood. Current IDF assessments refer to the possibilities of a large outbreak of violence or sporadic, large and non-violent marches towards Jewish settlements or IDF checkpoints.

I'm not sure what the 'housing demonstrations' have to do with this, and they have proceeded just fine, thank you. But as far as the 'Palestinians' go, almost every protest turns violent. More importantly, they cannot have it both ways. They cannot insist that they are under 'military occupation' and then complain about having military rules applied to them.

But the bigger concern here is what the 'Supreme Court' might do. On Monday, the court rejected a petition demanding that the army deploy the Iron Dome anti-missile system in Gaza border towns on the grounds that it does not interfere with IDF operational considerations. But that ruling that is completely farcical when you consider that the court has intervened in every bit of minutiae relating to the 'security fence' and has micromanaged the entire construction process. Will the court intervene to force the IDF to let the 'Palestinians' demonstrate as they please? What could go wrong?

Labels: Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, peaceful demonstrations, Supreme Court, unilateral declaration of statehood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 AM