Ramallah: On Sunday, 30 Nov 2014, The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies MADAR organized a symposium on the “draft bill to apply the Israeli law over settlements”. The symposium panel hosted Israeli affairs researcher Dr. Mohannad Mustafa, Law specialist Alaa’ Mahajna, and moderated by Mr. Muhannad Abdulhamid.
Abdulhamid said in his opening address that this symposium comes to shed light on the Israeli rightist endeavor to resolve the colonial control over the West Bank and particularly areas known as areas “C”. Highlighting the discriminatory nature of those laws, he added the discussion is focused on searching for mechanisms to stop those endeavors before they become a reality.
Dr. Muhannad Mustafa reviewed the political dimensions of the proposed bill to extend the jurisdiction of Israeli law over the West Bank, being part of the vision to annex areas “C”, and the larger Israeli perception to annex the West Bank. Mustafa explained that there is a political base for this vision, combining the politics of the new right and the outcomes of “Oslo Accords”. He added that the new right, which opposed the Oslo Accords, is trying to make use of its outcomes to impose its political vision with regards to the West Bank.
According to Mustafa, there are two outcomes of the Oslo Accords that the new right makes use of; first being the division of the West Bank to areas classified as areas “A”, “B” and “C”, which turned into a partition of the West Bank after the impediment of the negotiations track. The new right is trying to speed up the resolution of the control over most of the lands, specifically those in areas “C”.
The second outcome of the Oslo Accords is the founding of a weak Authority with power barely equivalent to an “autonomy”; a self-governing Palestinian body for domestic affairs without control over lands, while keeping Palestinians in isolated cantons as part of the “gradual annexation” policy over the remaining lands. This is Netanyahu’s vision of the future Palestinian state, despite the internal arguments among right wing leaders, as some of them reject the idea of the Palestinian state, in principle, and call for a Jewish Israeli state over Historic Palestine, regardless of the Palestinian presence.
From his side, legal researcher Alaa’ Mahajna, described the annexation policy and its legislation as nothing but real apartheid, from a legal perspective. He illustrated that the West Bank since its occupation in 1967 has been under unilaterally assigned “military rule”. The situation continued as such, Mahajna added, until the number of settlers in the West Bank increased, only then the policy towards the settlers became different than that practiced towards Palestinians, who are deprived from their political, social, judicial rights and their civil rights, as a whole.
Mahajna said the current danger is more political than legal, because the grip of “military rule” over Palestinian citizens will remain intact. He added that the danger that lies within this law is that any legislation that is applied to the citizens of Israel will be applied to the settlers, regardless of the opinion of the “Military ruler”, whose opinion remains advisory based on his knowledge of the area.
Mahajna pointed out the perspective of the international law saying that The Hague agreement states that the governing laws of the occupied territories must remain intact, and that the occupying power’s measures should respect the interest of the indigenous people, but Israel fails to comply with the international laws or respect them, legislating its own laws in favor of settlement activity, which if implemented can be considered as a crime against humanity. This is the angle that the Palestinians must make use of in their legal work, not only through Israeli courts, but also through international courts to prosecute Israel on basis of being an apartheid state.
