School of Social and Political Science

Description

Dr. Hassan Jabareen, General Director, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

The 7th of October 2023 is a constitutional moment for the two peoples: both the Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians. For Jewish Israelis, the 7th of October attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians is the most devastating and influential act since the Holocaust. For the Palestinians, the war that followed constitutes a genocide against the civilians and the cultural life in Gaza and it is even harsher than the Naqba (the Catastrophe of 1948).

My talk will discuss the implications of the war on the political rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI). This population constitutes about 20% of the total population in Israel (around 1.6 million people). I will argue that during this war, which is ongoing, the Palestinians in Israel have lived under an emergency legal regime, without the executive or legislature declaring such an emergency; no law or order was announced that declared the suspension of their rights. While the State of Israel has been in a declared state of emergency since 1948, which is renewed annually by the Knesset, Emergency Regulations were not used during this war.

My case study is the right to protest. Contrary to the written laws, the Israeli police banned the Palestinian citizens’ right to demonstrate. The police arrested and detained scores of youths, men and women, many of whom were later indicted under Counter-Terrorism laws, only for expressing their critique against the war or their sympathy with the Gaza population on social media. This kind of expression is perceived by Israeli authorities as “supporting the enemy during the war” and thus it supports terrorism. Further, some of these detainees, against their consent, were released from Israeli prisons as part of the Israel-Hamas deal for the exchange hostages. On other words, these Palestinian citizens were treated as an enemy of the state. I will also discuss the actions of Israeli universities and colleges against the Palestinian-Israeli students in this regard, as well as the Israeli Bar Association against the Palestinian lawyers during this war. These civil institutions also exercised emergency measures against the PCI, which are even against their written regulations.

The State of Israel and its civil institutions applied this policy of emergency only against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The suspension of the rule of law was not by law but simply by a decision taken by the Israeli police; the Attorney General did not intervene, and the Israeli Supreme Court, in unprecedented judgments, accepted this decision. This case study shows that the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel is not only second-class, but closer to that of an enemy.

This event is free but requires tickets to be obtain through pre-registration.

Please be aware attendees will need to agree to adhere to the University of Edinburgh's Dignity and Respect policy in order to attend this event. Further details on this can be found here. [External Link]