Dear friends

I hope you are weathering this HOT summer, in all senses of the word.

Earlier this month, HaMoked joined with 37 other human rights organizations in a petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice against the first piece of legislation passed by this government to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Just before the summer recess, the Knesset enacted a law cancelling the “reasonableness standard” as grounds for invalidating government decisions. Of course, it is important that the Court have the authority to halt patently unreasonable government action, and for that reason HaMoked joined the petition. But let’s be clear: the Court rarely relies on the reasonableness standard to uphold Palestinians’ rights.

Even when we go to the court with much stronger claims, arguing, for example, that government or military treatment of Palestinians is actually illegal (blatantly discriminatory or causing disproportionate harm), we cannot count on the court’s intervention.

Last week, the High Court heard our petition against a punitive home demolition in the Shuafat refugee camp. We argued as we always do that the policy of punitive demolitions is an illegal collective punishment of innocent people. We knew the court would not rule on the principle, but we hoped they might intervene in this very extreme case.

The punitive demolition order was issued following the stabbing of a border police officer by the family’s 13-year-old son, at the Shuafat checkpoint. A security guard then opened fire and accidentally shot the officer, who died from the gunshot wound. In our petition, we argued that the parents and four siblings should not lose their home due to an impulsive act of a young boy, which (the state acknowledged) his parents didn’t know about and had no way to prevent. These circumstances call into question whether these demolitions are really intended as a deterrent to violence, as the state claims, or are actually motivated by vengeance.

It took the High Court of Justice just three days to reject our petition. The Court ruled there was no reason to intervene in the military’s decision to demolish an apartment in the middle of the Shuafat refugee camp, home to parents and four children who are suspected of no wrongdoing. Justice Vogelman in a dissenting opinion wrote that due to boy’s young age, his room should be sealed rather than the whole house demolished.  

This is the 9^th punitive home demolition approved by the High Court of Justice this year. Unreasonable does not begin to describe what is wrong with the punitive home demolition policy. They are a blatant collective punishment, and a war crime. These cases are a stark reminder that the Court has an extremely poor record when it comes to defending Palestinians’ rights.

This is not to say we should not be concerned with this government’s efforts to undermine the independence of the judiciary. As I wrote recently in the Ha’aretz newspaper, “you do not have to love the High Court to strongly oppose this government’s efforts to politicize and undermine the judiciary.” But opposition to this government’s agenda must also include a strong defense of Palestinians’ rights.

Sincerely,

Jessica Montell
Executive Director of HaMoked