Israeli law is enforced in Israeli settlements and among Israeli civilians in Area C of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory under military occupation and therefore otherwise subject to military law. Some provisions are applied on a personal basis, such that it applies to Israeli residents rather than territory. Application of the laws has created "enclaves" of Israeli law in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, [1] [2] and the terms "enclave law" and "enclave-based justice" describe the resulting legal system. [3]
In parallel, other portions of Israeli law, including Israeli criminal law, are applied to Israelis on a personal basis in the West Bank. [1] Since January 2018, all laws proposed in the Knesset are actively considered vis à vis their application to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. [4] [5] [6]
The existence of a dual system of laws for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank has been used as evidence by those who claim that Israel practices apartheid in the region. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The term "enclave law" was coined in a 1987 article by Amnon Rubinstein, [13] an Israeli scholar of constitutional law. [14] Rubinstein noted regarding the legal system for the West Bank, that:
once perceived as an 'escrow' under the rules of international law – that is as a trust – they have become a 'legal mongrel' and have gradually been incorporated in practice into the realm of Israel's rule. [15]
In a 2009 report authored by Virginia Tilley, the South African Human Sciences Research Council wrote that "The outcome of the extraterritorial application of Israeli legislation on a personal basis, combined with the enclave law as described above, is that a settler lives within the framework of the West Bank law only in a very partial way". [16] The report then quoted Rubinstein's 1986 Hebrew work:
A resident of Ma’ale Adumim, for instance, is supposedly subject to the Military Government and to the local Jordanian law, but in fact he lives according to the laws of Israel both with respect to his personal law and with respect to the local municipality wherein he lives. The Military Government is nothing more than a symbol, through which Israeli law and governance operate. [16]
The concept and application of Israeli law in the West Bank settlements has been described numerous times in Israeli courts. [17] Examples include a 2004 case, Yinon Food Manufacturing and Marketing Ltd v. Qaraan, with respect to a dispute between a Palestinian and their Israeli-settlement-based employer, [lower-alpha 1] a 2006 Supreme Court case, Peace Now S.A.L. Educational Enterprises v. Supervisor of the Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria, summarized by Elyakim Rubinstein, [lower-alpha 2] and a 2007 Supreme Court case, Kav LaOved v. Jerusalem Labor Court, summarized by Eliezer Rivlin. [lower-alpha 3]
Territorial aspects of "enclave law" are implemented via a method called "pipelining". [1] Under this method, Israeli Military Orders, which constitute the primary laws in the West Bank, apply Israeli laws specifically to the jurisdictions of the Israeli settlement local councils. [1] This method is used to give Israeli ministries, such as the Israeli Ministry of Education and Israeli Health Ministry, jurisdiction over public facilities such as schools and hospitals in the territories. [1]
Through this system, Israeli settlers are subject to large portions of Israeli law whereas Palestinians are subject to a combination of Israeli military law and some local laws based on Jordanian law. [1] [22] In 1989, Eyal Benvenisti described how "through extensive military legislation, exterritorial application of Israeli legislation and Israeli court rulings" the border between Israel and the West Bank was no longer relevant for "almost all legal purposes that reflect Israeli interests", but the same was not true for the Palestinian population, especially with respect to civil rights. [23] [24]
Israeli laws that are applicable to Israeli citizens living in the West Bank are often administrative in nature, and include taxation, product supervision, national insurance, [2] education, welfare, health, work, personal status, [25] but exclude laws relating directly to the territory itself such as land and planning laws. [2] The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that labour laws applied in this way also apply to those Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements due to the "significant linkages" test and the principle of equality within the settlements. [2]
In November 2014, a bill to require all new Israeli laws to consider their application to Israeli settlements was approved by the cabinet but opposed by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein. [26] In May 2016, the initiative was relaunched by Ayelet Shaked. [27]
In December 2017, over 1,000 central committee members of Likud voted unanimously for "free construction and application of Israeli law and sovereignty in all liberated areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria". [28]
In January 2018, the Knesset House Committee agreed to instruct legal advisors to discuss every new Knesset bill's application to West Bank settlements during the legislative process. [4] [5] This was followed, a few weeks later, by the first ever Knesset deliberation of the application of proposed laws to the West Bank settlements. [6]
Israeli settlements or colonies are civilian communities where Israeli citizens live, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has referred to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as "the Occupied Palestinian Territory", and this term was used as the legal definition by the ICJ in its advisory opinion of July 2004. The term occupied Palestinian territory was used by the United Nations and other international organizations between October 1999 and December 2012 to refer to areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, but from 2012, when Palestine was admitted as one of its non-member observer states, the United Nations started using exclusively the name State of Palestine. The European Union (EU) also uses the term "occupied Palestinian territory". The government of Israel and its supporters use the label "disputed territories" instead.
The Judea and Samaria Area is an administrative division of Israel. It encompasses the entire West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but excludes East Jerusalem. Its area is split into 165 Palestinian "islands" that are under total or partial civil administration by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and a contiguous area containing 230 Israeli settlements into which Israeli law is "pipelined".
The Supreme Court of Israel is the highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction.
Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to areas that were formerly occupied by Israel, namely the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon. Prior to Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, occupation of the Palestinian territories was split between Egypt and Jordan, with the former having occupied the Gaza Strip and the latter having annexed the West Bank; the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights were under the sovereignty of Egypt and Syria, respectively. The first conjoined usage of the terms "occupied" and "territories" with regard to Israel was in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which was drafted in the aftermath of the Six-Day War and called for: "the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" to be achieved by "the application of both the following principles: ... Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict ... Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
The status of territories captured by Israel is the status of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, all of which were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Ariel University, previously a public college known as the Ariel University Center of Samaria, is an Israeli university located in the urban Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank.
Israel's policies and actions in its ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn accusations that it is committing the crime of apartheid. Leading Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups have said that the totality and severity of the human rights violations against the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and by some in Israel proper, amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid. Israel and some of its Western allies have rejected the accusation, with the former often labeling the charge antisemitic.
Human rights in the State of Israel, both legally and in practice, have been evaluated by intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists, often in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the wider Arab–Israeli conflict and Israel internal politics.
Seam Zone is a term used to refer to a land area in the Israeli-occupied West Bank located east of the Green Line and west of Israel's separation barrier, populated largely by Israelis in settlements such as Alfei Menashe, Ariel, Beit Arye, Modi'in Illit, Giv'at Ze'ev, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Efrat.
The Oslo II Accord divided the Israeli-occupied West Bank into three administrative divisions: the Palestinian enclaves as "Areas A and B" and the remainder, including Israeli settlements, as "Area C".
An Israeli military order is a general order issued by an Israeli military commander over territory under Israeli military occupation. It has the force of law. Enforcement of such orders is carried out by Israeli military police and military courts instead of civil courts.
The Levy Report, officially called Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria, is an 89-page report on West Bank settlements published on 9 July 2012, authored by a three-member committee headed by former Israeli Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy. The committee, dubbed the "outpost committee", was appointed by Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late January 2012 to investigate the legal status of unauthorized West Bank Jewish settlements, but also examined whether the Israeli presence in the West Bank is to be considered an occupation or not.
The Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria was a body which supervised Israeli universities and colleges in the West Bank. Its authority in the West Bank was similar to that of the Council for Higher Education in Israel in Israel proper.
B'Tselem is a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization whose stated goals are to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, combat any denial of the existence of such violations, and help to create a human rights culture in Israel. It is currently headed by Yuli Novak, who took over in June 2023 from Hagai El-Ad, who had served as its director-general since May 2014. B'Tselem also maintains a presence in Washington, D.C., where it is known as B'Tselem USA. The organization has provoked sharp reactions within Israel, ranging from harsh criticism to strong praise.
Yesh Din: Volunteers for Human Rights is an Israeli organization working in Israel and in the West Bank. The organization was founded in 2005 by a group of women who previously worked with the organization Machsom Watch. The purpose of Yesh Din, as reflected in its publications, is to work "for structural, long-term improvement to human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)".
Bezalel Yoel Smotrich is an Israeli far-right politician and lawyer who has served as the Minister of Finance since 2022. The leader of the Religious Zionist Party, he previously served as a Knesset member for Yamina.
Area C is the fully Israeli-controlled and only contiguous territory in the West Bank, defined as the whole area outside the Palestinian enclaves. Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory, contains all Israeli settlements other than those in East Jerusalem, and more than 99% of the area is off limits or heavily restricted for Palestinians. The area was committed in 1995 under the Oslo II Accord to be "gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction", but such transfer did not happen. The area is richly endowed with natural resources.
The Judea and Samaria Settlement Regulation Law, commonly known as the Regulation Law or sometimes the Regularization Law, is an Israeli law that aims to retroactively legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank Area C under the Oslo Accords. It is meant to "regulate" the status of about 2,000 to 4,000 residences in 16 settlements which were built on Palestinian-owned lands. The Knesset passed the legislation 60 to 52, on February 6, 2017. According to the law, the land on which the residences are built will remain that of the legal owners, but their usage will be expropriated by the State. In exchange, the Palestinian owners will be compensated at a rate of 125%, or receive alternate lands. The law is known by some of its critics as the "Expropriation Law" due to its land expropriation components. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is considered a breach of international law, though Israel disputes this.
The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid-era South Africa, and are thus referred to as bantustans. They have been referred to figuratively as the Palestinian archipelago, among other terms. The de facto status in 2023 is that Israel controls all area outside these enclaves.
As this paper will show, the pre-June 1967 borders have faded for almost all legal purposes that reflect Israeli interests. However, with regard to the interests of the local population, especially those concerning civil rights, those borders still exist.