The Justice of Occupation

by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz

New York Times
January 24, 2012

Israel’s Supreme Court is the body that provides checks and balances to the country’s executive and legislative powers, upholding constitutional standards. Over the years the court has gained a reputation as one of the most judicially active, human rights-oriented courts in the world.

In the four decades since the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the court has become a stage for an escalating conflict between two very different world views.

Israel is the only modern state that has held territories under military occupation for over four decades. It is also unusual for a nation to allow residents of territories under a military occupation to petition its Supreme Court and request intervention in acts of state.

Since the early years of the occupation, the Supreme Court has unwittingly found itself pushed into a corner time and again. Rather than functioning as the bastion of human rights that it was established to be, it has instead become the entity responsible for balancing the needs of a state engaged in a prolonged occupation with basic principles of democracy.

This Op-Doc expands on one of the themes explored in my new feature documentary, “The Law in These Parts,” and asks about the role of the Supreme Court in the legal underpinnings of the longest military occupation in modern times.

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