The Knesset passed a law on Monday, January 16, that allows verdicts from military courts in the occupied West Bank to be admitted as evidence in legal proceedings in Israeli civilian courts. The passage of the bill by the plenum in its second and third readings is regarded  by critics as a major step in applying Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, which is Palestinian occupied territory.

Israel’s Ofer prison and military court situated in the OPT; in the background, Ramallah, controlled by the Palestinian Authority (Photo: UN)

For the past nearly 50 years, since the start of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in June 1967, verdicts by military courts have not been admissible as evidence in Israel’s civilian courts. Furthermore, during half a century of occupation, Israeli law has not extended to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) as far as Palestinians are concerned, but it does apply to Israelis who live or work there or merely pass through, creating two separate systems of justice linked to the civil status of the individual involved – essentially attesting to the apartheid nature of Israel’s rule in the OPT. For Palestinians in the OPT, sovereignty is in the exclusive hands of the major general who heads the Israel army’s Central Command. This senior officer has the exclusive authority to issue  modify, and repeal laws in his role as the military commander. Thus, during the Knesset debate on the bill which has now been passed, Hadash, Joint List and other opposition lawmakers in the plenum called the new law the first step in an attempt to apply Israel’s legal system territorially to the OPT or, in other words, to annex those portions of the West Bank which Israel continues to control.

Hadash MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List), formerly a professor of law at the University of Haifa and a leader in the opposition to the bill, said military-court procedures do not meet Israeli standards of due process or defense of the rights of the accused “so it goes without saying that their rulings cannot be accepted in Israeli courts. The motive for this legislation is simply revenge, and therefore I hope that it will be annulled in the future by the Supreme Court for being blatantly unconstitutional.”