Israeli High Court Petition on Route 443 - Provides Approval for Separation and Discrimination

Written by Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI)
Thursday, 20 March 2008

The meaning of the (Israeli) High Court decision regarding the petition of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in the matter of Route 443, which prohibits travel on this road by Palestinians: for the first time in its history, the Israeli High Court gave a decision that provides approval for separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis, with no security need and in blatant violation of the laws of occupation.
On 5 March 2008, the (Israeli) High Court held a hearing of the petition submitted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) against the Minister of Defence, the Central Military Commander and Commander of the Binyamin Division, in the wake of the demand to annul the prohibition placed on Palestinians from traveling on Route 443. The petition was submitted by ACRI Attorney Lee in March 2007, on behalf of residents of the six Palestinian villages adjacent to Route 443, whose daily life has been badly affected by this prohibition of travel, which is the primary and sole road in their area. The petitioners are only a small part of the entire Palestinian population badly affected by the closing of this road to them.
The petition was heard by President of the Israeli High Court, Dorit Beinish and Judges Edmund Levy and Uzi Fogelman. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court gave an interim decision that the Respondents must update the court within six months on progress in paving the “fabric of life” road. This decision essentially provides a green light to the military to pave separate roads for Palestinians, which means—unprecedented provision by the High Court for polices of separation and discrimination in movement, a policy that has already been dubbed “apartheid.” If the judges had indeed intended, as they are obligated to do, to seriously weigh the legal argument raised by the petition, there would have been no reason to approve the continued paving of the “fabric of life” road, which entails the additional confiscation and destruction of land and costs of tens of millions of shekels. For the first time in its history, the Israeli High Court gave a decision that provides approval for separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis, with no security need and in blatant violation of the laws of occupation. It should be recalled that this is not a decision given in the interim stages of litigation, but only after both sides rested.
Route 443 was paved on lands confiscated from Palestinian residents, maintaining that it was required for the transportation needs of the Palestinians in the West Bank. The road did indeed serve the Palestinians for a period of time, but from 2000 began a gradual process of transforming the road into one for Israelis only. This is in total contradiction to international law, which permits land confiscation only for the needs of the local population or for protecting the forces of the occupier.
In a hearing of the petition, ACRI attorneys Limor Yehuda and Dan Yakir noted that Route 443 primarily serves the residents of Israel in connecting between Jerusalem and the coastal region, the goal of which is the comfort of the these drivers, and has no connection to security needs. With the approval provided by the military commander for improper use of private lands confiscated from the Palestinian residents, he deviated from his legal authority both under Israeli law and international law. With the approval given by the judges to the commander for paving bypass roads for the Palestinians, for the first time in its history they are approving a policy of separation on the basis of group belonging, through discrimination against the protected residents of the occupied territory.
ACRI expresses deep concern about the decision of the Israeli High Court judges, not only because of its content, which as noted means approving an illegal and immoral policy that is most dangerous, in a manner that could be a precedent for approving additional expansive and grave violations of human rights, if only because of the renunciation of any appropriate judicial process: even though this is a substantive decision, it was given without any reasons and by completely ignoring the primary arguments raised by the petitioners. In this, the decision violates the right of the petitioners to receive a ruling in their case, and to receive a detailed response by the court to the question of whether the actions of the respondents today, and not in some future time, are or are not legal.
ACRI further emphasizes that the fabric of life road, that is intended to provide an alternative for the Palestinian residents of the region, leaves hundreds of thousands of residents in the area without appropriate answers for their transportation needs.
(Originally published in Hebrew by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel , translated to English by the Alternative Information Center).

Report: Gov't won't grant rights to Palestinians west of fence

Haaretz 22:20 16/12/2007
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent

The State of Israel will not grant permanent or temporary residency to West Bank Palestinians whose homes were annexed to the Jerusalem municipal area by the separation fence, the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds reported on Sunday. The measure, which was reportedly approved by the cabinet in October, stipulates that the Palestinians in question could at most apply for residency permits from the military authorities - which confer no right to work in Israel, to obtain Israeli health insurance or to enjoy any of the other benefits of legal residency. At the fringes of Jerusalem's municipal area are a few neighborhoods that are officially part of the West Bank. Their residents are Palestinian Authority citizens, and are legally banned from entering Israel. The newly-built separation fence between Israel and the West Bank disconnected them from the rest of the West Bank.
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The decision effectively means that the communities that were forcibly annexed to Israel will not be permitted to work and study in Israel and receive welfare benefits. In order to work they would have to travel to the West Bank, but travel expenses are in most cases higher than a day's salary. The Association for Civil Rights said that "the government strives to make the lives of the Palestinians who were annexed to Jerusalem intolerable to a degree that they would leave their homes and move to the West Bank."

UN: West Bank fence severs Palestinans farmers from fields

By The Associated Press
Haaretz 17.11.2007

Only 18 percent of some 30,000 West Bank farmers who used to work the lands cut off by Israel's separation fence now have Israeli permits to reach their fields, the United Nations said in a report on the lives of some 230,000 Palestinians in 67 communities close to the fence. The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs looked at 15 communities with about 10,000 residents trapped between the fence and Israel, and at 52 communities with 220,000 residents on the Palestinian side of the divider. Those in the hemmed-in villages require permanent residency permits, while those on the east side of the fence need Israeli-issued visitors permits to reach lands or visit family in the enclosed communities.
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Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the report is one-sided and that Israel is working to reduce the fence's impact on the Palestinians. Israel started building the fence in 2002, saying it is a temporary security tool meant to keep out of Palestinian attackers who by then had killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in bombings and shootings. However, the fence is largely built on West Bank land and Palestinians say its meandering route amounts to a land grab. Once completed, it would slice off 8.6 percent of West Bank land and, according to UN data, incorporate 380,000 of 450,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, which the Palestinians demand for a future state. The UN report, citing local community leaders, said that of some 30,000 Palestinians who used to work their fields on the Israeli side of the fence, only 18 percent currently have permits to reach their fields. Some 3,000 people stopped applying because they'd been repeatedly rejected in the past. Sixty-seven gates are built into the 200 kilometer stretch of fence studied, the report said. Of those, 19 are open daily to those with permits, but are closed at night, while another 19 are open during special harvest seasons, or weekly, the report said. Of the 15 villages hemmed in by the fence, nine reported that pregnant women had to leave their homes weeks before birth to ensure they could access proper health care, and just over half the villages said they had no access to basic health care, meaning they had to pass through gates in Israel's fence for treatment. The UN report said all the hemmed-in villages reported single people had problems meeting spouses because of that isolation - a burden in conservative Palestinian society, which expects men and women to marry quite young, and looks disapprovingly upon those who delay marriage. The fence, alongside Israeli settlements and Israeli-only roads, has fragmented the West Bank. Some 60 percent has been completed, mostly in the northern West Bank and around Jerusalem. In an advisory ruling in 2004, the International Court of Justice said the parts of the fence that jut into the West Bank are illegal and called on Israel to dismantle them. Regev said the fence has boosted Israeli security. "We have seen since the fence has gone up, a 90 percent reduction of suicide bombings into Israel, surely these are facts that can't be ignored," Regev said. "Ultimately the route of the fence is for security reasons. We have a policy to find the greatest possible security to Israelis and minimize the negative impact to Palestinians," he said.

Reaping the occupation's fruit

By Amira Hass
Haaretz 1.11.2007
If the plot of land belonging to Dr. Salam Fayad, the Palestinian prime minister, were located 50 meters west of its present location, in the level part of the village of Deir al-Ghusun, it would now be growing thorns and thistles. If it were located 50, or at most 100 meters, to the west, Fayad's plot would have found itself on the other side of the separation fence, on the other side of Gate 609, which soldiers open and close three times a day to allow entrance to those who have managed, after investing considerable efforts, to get permits in order to get to their land. Deir al-Ghusun, eight kilometers north of Tul Karm, incorporates about 15,000 dunams (including the built-up area and the master plan). Of these, 2,200 dunams are pinned between the separation fence and the Green Line. About 300 families own plots of land in this area. Throughout the year - not including the height of the agricultural season - about 150 people need regular permits to reach their private land. A few hundred more request permits during the olive-picking and harvesting seasons. Of the village's 10,000 residents, about 4,000 make a living from the plots located behind the fence. Or to be more accurate: they could, theoretically, make a living from them.

'N.C. No crossings' Hired agricultural workers tend to the cauliflower and corn in Fayad's plot. If his land were located on the other side of the fence, most likely the laborers would not be able to cultivate it. Based on the experience of the residents, the Civil Administration grants entry permits only to the land's owners and their first-degree relatives, not to hired laborers. Khaled Abdul Latif Khader, one of Fayad's relatives, is 61 years old. He has no children to help him cultivate the 12 dunams belonging to him and his wife. Until the fence was built, he employed five workers. Last Friday he went to his plot, took a look around and quickly left: It was too painful for him to see the olives that he and his wife cannot pick by themselves, the dry land that they didn't water, the weeds. If Fayad's land were there, on the other side of the fence, and if he had decided that he or his immediate family would cultivate it, this is what he would have to do: Submit a copy of his ID, his tabu (property registration) permits, the Palestinian Authority land registration form, as approved by the Civil Administration's land registry office, and the request for "an entry permit to the seam-line area." When the landowner dies, his sons have to submit a death certificate and an inheritance order, since the land is not registered in their name. This entire bundle of papers is submitted to a special official in the village council, who passes them on to an official in the PA Civil Liaison Office, who travels to the office of the Israeli Civil Administration in the settlement of Kedumim and submits an average of 35 requests a week. And then Fayad would have to wait for a reply and a permit. Sometimes it takes two weeks, sometimes a week, sometimes a month and a half. The negative reply is scribbled in Hebrew, hand-written, on the request for a permit: "N.C. - No crossings," it says on the request form of Amar Ghanem, 27, and on the margins it reads: "Received a permit for olive picking for one week." In other words, someone in the Civil Administration decided that one week is enough. He doesn't need more. Amar's father, Yasser Ghanem, owns 17 dunams of land on the other side of the fence, which he shares with his brothers. On September 21 his previous two-year permit expired. He submitted a request for a new permit well before its expiration date. He waited and waited and the long-awaited permit for him and his wife finally arrived on October 17. It is valid from October 16 to October 22. Seven days, of which the first day has already passed. One of his female relatives died on October 18. Yasser spent three days in the wake house. He had one day left. His brother Taisir and his sister-in-law received a permit on the same day, October 17. Their permit also begins on the 16th of the month, but is valid until October 18. And Taisir recently planted new saplings, which have to be watered every four days. Bakr Ibrahim had a three-month permit that expired on October 6. He submitted a request for a new one, and has been waiting since. The olives on the trees are also waiting. Based on incidental conversations with officers, the residents of Deir al-Ghusun explain the change - from issuing two-year permits to granting permits for only a few days - as a result of the power switch in the Defense Ministry: Amir Peretz's office conveyed to the Civil Administration officers that it was important to pick every last olive. But the last olive is not important to Ehud Barak. This Sunday, 18 permits arrived at the offices of the village council: five are valid for a year, one for three months, six for between 12 days and four weeks, and the remaining six are valid for two days. Husni Abdullah is one of the farmers who, on the afternoon of October 28, received a permit that he had been waiting for since the beginning of the month. The permit is valid from October 28 to October 29. The size of his land: 34 dunams. One-day harvest On October 24, he sent a letter, via the activists of Machsom Watch, to Colonel Sharon Afek, the Israel Defense Forces' legal adviser for the West Bank. In the letter he explained about himself and his cousin, Hafez. They are both childless. They both cultivate the same plot. They both had two-year permits. Neither of them had their permits renewed in time, although they submitted their requests in September. It's true, they noted in the letter, that there are another three family members with permits: one is disabled and cannot work, certainly not by himself; a second is studying in Jordan and the third is Husni's wife. How can she pick olives on an area of 34 dunams by herself? After receiving a permit of two days (which turned out to be just a day) in the end, he once again wrote to the legal adviser, using the services of Machsom Watch. The permit is a mockery, he wrote. Only about 10 of the village's residents did not receive permits, on the grounds of "security reasons." One of them is Jafar Abdul Munim. He had a two-year permit, valid until November 4 of this year. He forgot the permit in the pocket of his pants, which were sent to be laundered. When he asked for a new permit, the Civil Administration suddenly informed him that he was "prevented [from being issued a permit] for security reasons." Munim also sent a letter to the IDF legal adviser via Machsom Watch. In the letter he claimed that there was no basis for turning him into a security risk, and asked that the Shin Bet security services invite him to its special committees (code name: "the agricultural committees") to prove that he does not suddenly represent a security risk. Only his brother is left with a permit to work the 22-dunam plot. "My brother cannot accomplish the task by himself," Jafar wrote to Colonel Afek. "A large percentage of the crop for which we worked so hard all year to support our family will go down the drain." It is a statement that could become the mantra of many residents in the village of the Palestinian prime minister. The Civil Administration claims there has been no change in the policy for issuing permits, and that the procedures are determined by "a professional body, including a staff officer in charge of agriculture, with the main consideration being to make things easier for the resident and to minimize the damage to the farmers." In its reply, the Israeli authority claims that the length of the permit "is determined in accordance with the size of the plot. In the past, in light of the lenient approach, a large number of permits (for farmers and laborers) were given to residents who were not entitled to them, because the size of their plots was small, to the point where we suspected an attempt to receive a permit fraudulently, and working the land certainly does not require many work days or hiring a number of workers. Each request is handled differently, which explains the differences in the duration of replies." In other words, from the response of the Civil Administration we can conclude that permits are in fact given to hired workers. The Deir al-Ghusun council says the decision on the duration of the permit is arbitrary and does not take into account the family ownership, the customary cooperative work and the fact that some of the heirs do not even come to the plot and leave it in the hands of the other siblings. The farmers are also saying that the olive-picking season is followed by the almond season, and that cultivating the land requires prolonged work, which extends beyond the olive harvest.