Israeli permit regime in the West Bank: Difference between revisions

The Permit system in occupied Palestinian territory requires permits from the military authorities governing Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967 for a wide range of activities. According to Yael Berda of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, it is one of three elements underpinning Israel's military management of the occupied population through intelligence, economic control and racial profiling.^[1]

Dimensions

Under Israeli military rule, almost every aspect of ordinary everyday Palestinian life was subject to pervasive military regulations, calculated to number of 1,300 by 1996, from planting trees and importing books, to house extensions.^[2] In the first two decades of occupation Palestinians were required to apply to the military authorities for permits and licenses for an enormous number of things such as a driver's license, a telephone, trademark and birth registration, and a good conduct certificate which was indispensable to obtain entry into many branches of professions and to work places, with putative security considerations determining the decision, which was delivered by an oral communication. The overwhelming source of information on security risks came from the Shin Bet which however was found to have systematically lied to courts for 16 years.^[3][4] Obtaining such permits has been described as a via dolorosa for the Palestinians seeking them.^[5] In 2004, only 0.14% of West Bankers (3,412 out of 2.3 million)^[6] had valid permits to travel through West Bank checkpoints.^[6] Military order 101 denied West Bankers the right to purchase any form of printed matter –books, posters, photographs and even paintings – from abroad (including from Israel) unless prior authorization had been obtained from the military.^[7] Prohibitions even affected dress codes by disallowing certain colour combinations in clothing, or refusing to cover the sewage in the Negev detention centre of Ansar 111^[8] where huge numbers of Palestinians have served time. Zygmunt Bauman's warnings of the debilitating effect bureaucracy may have on the human condition has been cited to throw light on the Orwellian or Kafkaesque trap of red tape that, it is argued, places a stranglehold on Palestinian autonomy.^[9] The Israeli permit or pass system for Palestinians was likened very early to that devised in South Africa under Apartheid.^[10]

Obtaining permits

Since 1991 Israel has never publicly clarified with clear consistent rules the criteria governing permits.^[11] To get a permit in the 1980-1990s one was required to acquire an approval stamp, each time paying a fee, from several different offices: (i) the tax office; (ii) the local police (iii) the municipality; (iv) the Israeli-sponsored "village leagues" (both of the latter often staffed by collaborators), and the Shin Bet, and even with these attachments, permission was not automatically forthcoming.^[a]

Birth certificate

One Bethlehemite, trying to get his daughter's birth registered – Palestinian birth registries are controlled by Israel^[12] – was required to obtain seven stamps from seven different government offices. The income office denied him their stamp because he was behind in his tax payments, though they were deducted automatically from his pay. His wife, using her identity papers, had to do the same rounds, and eventually a birth certificate was conceded.^[13] Even when some powers were delegated to the Palestinian Authority, the appropriate Palestinian offices were reduced to acting as "mailmen", passing on requests for permits to the Israeli Civil Administration, 80-80% of which are then rejected on unexplained "security grounds".^[11]

Expulsion

In 2007 Israel introduced stay permits which were required to legally reside within the West Bank. The permits were issued to Palestinians whose registered address in the Palestinian Population Registry was in the West Bank. That registry had however been frozen since 2000, resulting in Palestinians who had moved between Gaza and the West Bank when no permit to do so was required being denied the permit now needed to continue residing there. Berlanty Azzam, a student at Bethlehem University who had moved to the West Bank from Gaza in 2005, appealed such a case to the Israeli Supreme Court, when, after being stopped at an Israeli checkpoint in October 2009, was found to not be in possession of the required stay permit and was expelled to Gaza that same night. The court found that she had not obtained the required stay permit, despite having moved to the West Bank before the introduction of those permits, and as such it upheld the Military Commander's authority to expel her.^[14][15] Several months later, the Military Commander issued Israeli Military Order 1650, which amended Military Order No. 329, an order that was issued in 1969 titled "Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration". The amendment expanded the meaning of "infiltrator" from those who had entered the West Bank from Israel's neighboring countries and considered enemy states, namely Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, to also include Palestinians not holding a valid stay permit.^[16][17][15] As "infiltrators", such people are subject to immediate expulsion and prosecution with penalties up to seven years imprisonment.^[16] The order leaves tens of thousands of Palestinians potentially subject to arrest and expulsion.^[18][16]

Building permits

Israel has imposed a permit system for building in East Jerusalem and Area C which makes home construction almost impossible for Palestinian residents. It is estimated that 85 percent of the Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem are "illegal" This implies that since 1967 approximately twenty thousand buildings were built by Palestinians in East Jerusalem without acquiring sufficient building permits.^[19] Israel has excluded hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from its population register, with serious consequences for their ability to dwell in or travel from the West Bank (and Gaza). The number of Palestinians who have had their residency permits revoked from 1967 to 2017 exceeds 130,000 people in the West Bank and 14,565 in East Jerusalem.^[20]

When pieces of land are fenced off from their traditional owners, often by declaring they lie within a closed military zone or on the Israeli seam land side of the Separation Barrier, a permit from the military administration is then required for the owner to access his fields: tending such fields becomes an arduous bureaucratic and physical task with access often allowed only once a year. The practice of denying usufruct in order to allow the 10 year expiry of rights to kick in was taken to the Israeli Supreme Court which, in 2006, arguing that the denial of access custom was akin to denying a person the right to enter his own home in order to defend himself from a thief, ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, and directed the IDF to ensure everything was done to ensure Palestinians could tend their olive groves. According to Irus Braverman, however, subsequent IDF regulations, guaranteeing tree protection in designated "friction zones" (ezorei hikuch) but not anywhere else, only complicated the issue.^[21] By 2018 it was calculated that of grants to people in the West Bank of areas Israel declared to be state lands, 99.7% was given to Israeli settlements, with 0.24% (400 acres (160 ha)) being earmarked for allocation to Palestinians who constitute 88% of the population.^[22]

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