Israeli Law and the Rule of Colonial Difference

Abstract

Israeli law is an important medium that maintains, perfects, and facilitates the fragmentation of Palestinians. Israeli citizenship figures in this structure of fragmentation as an exceptionalizing legal status that blurs “colonial difference” between Palestinian citizens in Israel and Jewish Israelis. The May 2021 uprising and its aftermath not only highlighted the counter-­fragmentary forces present among Palestinians across different legal ­statuses, it also brought into clearer view a rule of “colonial difference” that crisscrosses the Israeli legal system and pertains to all Palestinians under its control. This essay explores the concept of “colonial difference” as applied to Palestinians through the law, and how this rule has been employed in the context of the May 2021 uprising against Palestinian citizens in particular.

Keywords:

• uprising
• fragmentation
• unity
• colonial difference
• law and order
• Palestinians in Israel
• citizenship
• police and prosecution

Endnotes

Notes

1 Palestinian scholars have problematized the colonial nature of Israeli citizenship extensively.

For more on this topic, see Hassan Jabareen, “Hobbesian Citizenship: How the Palestinians Became a Minority in Israel,” in Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World, ed. Will Kymlicka and Eva Pföstl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 189; Nadim N. Rouhana and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, “Settler-Colonial Citizenship: Conceptualizing the Relationship between Israel and Its Palestinian Citizens,” Settler Colonial Studies 5, no. 3 (2015): pp. 205–25, https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2014.947671; Lana Tatour, “Citizenship as Domination: Settler Colonialism and the Making of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel,” Arab Studies Journal 27, no. 2 (Fall 2019): pp. 8–39, https://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/272-fall-2019.html.

2 On the concept of “colonial difference,” see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 10.

3 Josh Breiner, “Israel Police Arrested over 2,000 People Since Gaza Op—91 Percent of Them Arab,” Haaretz, 3 June 2021, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-police-arrested-over-2-000-people-since-mixed-city-riots-91-percent-of-them-are-arab-1.9872019.

4 Jack Khoury, Josh Breiner, and Deiaa Haj Yahia, “Israeli Police Arrest Hundreds of Arabs in Crackdown Leaders Warn Could Reignite Tensions,” Haaretz, 25 May 2021, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-police-arrest-hundreds-of-arabs-in-crackdown-leaders-warn-could-reignite-tensions-1.9841763.

5 Josh Breiner, “Some 300 Arrested in an Operation to ‘Restore Deterrence,’ the Vast Majority Released” [in Hebrew, translation by the author, emphasis added], Haaretz, 26 May 2021, ​​https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/.premium-1.9843906.

6 “Israeli Police Targeted Palestinians with Discriminatory Arrests, Torture and Unlawful Force,” Amnesty International, 24 June 2021, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/israeli-police-targeted-palestinians-with-discriminatory-arrests-torture-and-unlawful-force-2/.

7 Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, “What Happened in the ‘Torture Room’ at Israel’s Police Station in Nazareth?,” 7 June 2021, https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10351.

8 The world “colonial” was commonly used during the first quarter of the twentieth century by Zionist leaders to depict the Zionist project and its aims. “The Iron Wall” by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky is perhaps one of the strongest self-depictions of Zionism as colonialism. Zionist institutions such as the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association are also evident of this phenomenon.

9 See, for example, Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020).

10 Joseph Massad, “The ‘Post-colonial’ Colony: Time, Space, and Bodies in Palestine/Israel,” in The Pre-occupation of Postcolonial Studies, ed. Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), pp. 311–46.

11 Despite the fact that the Israeli government failed to renew the law in 2021 and it has therefore legally expired, its policies are still implemented, and the Israeli Ministry of Interior asked the Immigration Authority to disregard its formal expiration. See, for example, Chen Maanit and Bar Peleg, “Israeli Minister Asks Immigration Authority to Disregard Expiration of Palestinian Unification Law,” Haaretz, 13 September 2021, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-ayelet-shaked-refuses-to-allow-palestinian-family-reunification-even-though-law-exp-1.10206895.

12 Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, “UN Human Rights Council Establishes Committee to Probe Israeli Violations of Palestinian Rights in OPT and inside Israel,” 27 May 2021, https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10345.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rabea Eghbariah

Rabea Eghbariah is a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School and a human rights attorney with the Haifa-based Adalah legal center.