http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=10833&mador=4&datee=12/21/97
Ha'aretz, December 21, 1997
Ignoring Justice to Protect the Budget
By Gideon Levy
One injustice leads to another. One sin leads to
another and no one seems able to stopthe speeding
train of injustices. First, Israel killed 1,346
Palestinians, including 276 children many of whom
were innocent civilians. Now it is denying all
responsibility for its actions., The discussion
over the proposed Intifada Law, intended to limit
the rights of innocent Palestinians to receive
compensation from the state for their casualties,
is proceeding at a brisk pace. Yitzhak Rabin
initiated the proposed legislation, Shimon Peres
pressed for its passage, and the present justice
minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, is giving it official
sanction and has called it "a moral imperative."
Likud and Labor, in a rare show of solidarity, are
supporting this law, which, according to top legal
experts, may not stand up to a challenge in the
High Court of Justice. Thus, the Knesset is about
to give a second and third reading to one of the
most scandalous laws in international legislative
history.
Under Rabin and Peres, one could still hear talk
about principles, even though it was merely empty
rhetoric: Peres spoke of each side compensating its
own victims, as if Israel were not the only
sovereign power in the territories at the time.
Now, however, the message is being delivered
without any shame whatsoever: the justice minister
has openly admitted that the law is designed to
protect the state budget. Money must be saved at
all cost, and to hell with justice.,
Representatives of the state prosecutor and defense
experts warned the members of the Knesset
Constitution, Law and Justice Committee that unless
the law is enacted the government will face "a
torrent of litigation" which could seriously
deplete the state treasury. They tossed out an
estimate of a billion shekels. They spoke of
lawyers who were virtually litigations contractors
and said that the danger of high compensation
awards was real because courts tended to rule in
favor of generous compensation (for example, the
compensation for the loss of an eye has recently
climbed from NIS 80,000 to NIS 280,000). They
warned that the economy would not be able to stand
the strain., Perhaps unintentionally, the
supporters of the law are presenting the courts as
an empty vessel bereft of reasoning powers and are
pushing for retroactive legislation (the law would
apply also to those who have already initiated
legal action).
Various bizarre reasons have been summoned to
justify this draconian law. For example, the
Intifada has been defined as a wartime operation.
If so, why should those imprisoned and detained in
the course of the Intifada not be given the status
of prisoners of war? Are we ready for such a move?
Israel is playing with the law and with morality
for the sake of convenience, especially since the
issue involves Palestinians., Former Attorney
General Michael Ben-Yair, who opposes the law, last
week spoke out against the lack of distinction
being made between police actions under military
occupation and a military operation in wartime.
"History will be the judge of our actions in the
territories, and this law will make the judgment
even more severe," he said., The dean of Hebrew
University's law faculty, Prof. Uriel Procaccia
criticized the law's intrinsic anti-Palestinian
bias. "The only reason being touted to justify this
law is the fact that the names of the victims are
Daoud, Ibrahim and Yusef. If their names were
David, Abraham and Yosef, no one would ever
consider proposing such a law and, were it passed,
the Supreme Court of Justice would have no
alternative but to reject it totally as violating
the basic rights of the individual to the
protection of life, limb and property, as
established in the Basic Law: Human Dignity.",
Consider the facts. Most victims of the Intifada
have never presented any claim for compensation,
and most of them have no intention of doing so. The
road leading from some remote refugee camp to the
halls of Israeli justice is long and difficult.,
Moreover, even without the new law, most of them
are not eligible to receive compensation because
they must prove that their suffering was caused by
negligence and not as the result of attempts to
protect the lives of Israeli soldiers., The present
statute of limitations, which is now seven years
(the law's proponents want it cut to one year),
does not justify the panic over the prospect of
thousands of suits. Many Intifada victims were
injured during the early years of the uprising,
more than seven years ago., Nonetheless, the state
prosecution is ready to sanction this injustice,
defense experts are pressing for a speedy
legislative procedure, and the Knesset will pass
the law. From now on, judges presiding over civil
suits in Netanya or Jerusalem will have to examine
the ethnic identity of all plaintiffs, and there
will one torts law for residents of the state and
another for residents of the territories.
The entire right-wing, with the support of members
of the Labor faction in the Knesset led by Ehud
Barak, have found that the partition of the Land of
Israel has some advantages. The proposed law will
shut a window of humane opportunity, one of the few
still remaining to the Palestinians who are
suffering the double burden of closure and military
occupation.
It is also closing off another opportunity for
preserving our moral image: a state that invests
NIS 2.18 billion yearly in the rehabilitation of
its handicapped veterans is not prepared to
allocate another few million shekels to Palestinian
children and youth, who were the innocent victims
of actions undertaken by that state.
The blind youth, Ashraf Ibrahim of the Nur A-Sham
refugee camp; the family of the dead 13-year-old
girl, Rufeida Abu Laben, from Daheisheh; or the 13
orphans of Muhammad and Ismail Abadin are deserving
of compensation. But Israel is not willing to
consider any compensation for the major and still
bleeding injustices of 1948 and is now evading the
possibility of making a small compensation for much
smaller injustices. The Bible instructs us "Do no
wrong to the stranger, the fatherless nor the
widow." The proponents of this law act as if
they've never heard of such a principle
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