The Law in These Parts Storyville

This is the beginning of a documentary film.

The common understanding is that a documentary depicts reality,

unlike fiction, which tells a story.

This definition may be accepted but it's not precise.

In the film, I will document a legal system.

A system which organises law and order

within the territories we conquered in 1967.

It's a unique system, only a few people understand it in depth.

It's also worth reflecting on the term law.

A common understanding is that the law is a collection of rules

that organise life in a particular place.

And define the rights and obligations that exist

among people and between people and the authorities.

The law, that organises people's lives,

is entrusted to certain people.

People like the protagonists of this film.

Our protagonists are legal professionals.

All of them are veterans of the Israeli Military Legal Corps.

They, and many others, are the people who wrote, developed,

and implemented the law of the occupied territories.

A legal professional's work is hidden from sight.

It's carried out in a language most of us don't even understand.

The work of our protagonists always remains behind the scenes.

And never receives the exposure it deserves.

This work was never filmed but it is documented.

Hundreds of thousands of pages, military orders,

legal opinions and court rulings

tell whoever reads them a story about law in the time of occupation.

The story actually begins before 1967.

In the years leading up to the war,

the Legal Corps had been studying international law,

focusing on laws of warfare and occupation of enemy territory.

In those years, the Military Advocate General, Meir Shamgar,

wrote Guide For A Military Advocate In Occupied Territory.

A manual containing all the information our military

legal professionals would need should our army ever occupy

territory in a neighbouring country.

Emergency war kit included documents notifying an occupied population

the basic principles of the new law they would be subjected to.

All of this according to what is dictated in the Hague Regulations

and Geneva Convention.

The law, which is entrusted in the hands of certain people,

applies to other people.

Overnight, approximately 1,000,000 people,

residents of the West Bank and Gaza,

become subject to the new legal system.

According to international law, an occupying army is responsible

for the security and welfare of the residents in areas it occupies.

The mission was to uphold these responsibilities.

During the first year, our military legal men formulated

hundreds of orders in order to meet the changing needs

of day-to-day life in the territories.

It was necessary to supervise the content of school books.

To determine that the Israeli pound is legal currency,

to set the exchange rates,

to oversee property of the occupied state,

to protect archaeological sites,

to enable freedom of worship for all religions.

The local residents learned the law,

not through reading the orders issued,

but through contact with the new authorities.

Over the course of half a century, they were subject to Ottoman rule,

then British, then Jordanian or Egyptian.

Now they find themselves governed by the Israeli military.

The people subjected to the law will be represented in this

film by images from documentaries made over the last 40 years.

Mostly by Israeli filmmakers, like me.

In films like these,

the person who is documenting presents facts and context.

The subject is filmed as himself

and the viewer judges reality as it is presented before him.

The first order to be published,

based on British emergency regulations of 1945,

establishes military courts

in which people who violate order and security will be tried.

The order states that the judges in such courts should be

three military officers

and that at least one of them must have legal training.

"The prosecutor", states the order,

"will be an officer appointed by the regional commander.

"The defendant may be represented by an attorney of his choice.

"The trial will take place in Hebrew

"but a soldier who can translate the proceedings into Arabic

"must be present and the proceedings will be transcribed."

Today, hundreds of thousands of court minutes

are preserved in our military archives.

The indictments, arguments and judgements

tell the history of the relationship between the

Palestinians in the territories and the law they are subjected to.

The Israeli soldiers who testified in the trial said

they were flown in by helicopter to pursue a group of people who

entered the occupied area from Jordan illegally.

The infiltrators were armed and a fire-fight broke out.

Eight of the infiltrators surrendered and were captured.

As the trial began, the group's commander spoke to the court.

"I was born in Jerusalem,"

he said, "and left the country after the war.

"I am certain that this land is my land."

The documents in the file reveal

that Omar Qassem left the West Bank

in 1967 during a period when many Palestinians left the area,

uncertain of what might come.

In Jordan, he joined one of the Palestinian organisations,

went through military training

and was sent back into the occupied area in order to attack

Israeli targets and help spark an armed uprising in the region.

In court, Qassem claims that he is a soldier who fought against soldiers.

He is not willing to stand trial as a criminal.

Today, the distinction between a soldier and a terrorist

is deeply rooted in our legal and political discourse.

But apparently at the end of the 1960s,

it was still necessary to establish this difference in the law.

The Qassem judgement is one of the first legal texts

that contends with the legitimacy of the

Palestinian struggle against the state of Israel.

In his ruling, Judge Abulafia writes that the Geneva Convention

indeed grants special status to lawful combatants,

including members of liberation organisations.

"To be granted such status," explains the judge,

"these combatants must meet certain requirements.

"Most importantly,

"they must fight according to the international laws of warfare.

"The Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine,"

writes the judge,

"is not an organisation that upholds laws of warfare.

"Their attacks on innocent civilians in the Jerusalem market

"or in the bus station in Tel Aviv are clear proof of this.

"Members of such an organisation have no right to claim

"the status of lawful combatants.

"International law was not written

"in order to protect terrorists and criminals."

According to what she said during her interrogation,

Arifa met a woman in the marketplace who told her that a certain

man asked that she meet him in the vineyards outside the village

the next day.

Arifa understood that this man had come from Jordan illegally

and that he was hiding from the authorities.

She also figured he might be hungry and thirsty.

When she went to the meeting, Arifa brought bread

and a couple of tins of sardines with her.

Over the next two weeks she continued to bring food

and water for the man and for three others who were hiding with him.

Months later she was arrested for this and brought to trial.

Arifa Ibrahim's attorney claims her client shouldn't be

punished at all for feeding a person who asked for help.

Even if the man is wanted by the authorities.

"Giving food to a person in need," claims the attorney,

"is a universally accepted human value."

Justice Jacob Auer does not accept the defence's arguments.

In his ruling, he writes that

"these infiltrating terrorists are like poisonous snakes.

"The so-called human values mentioned by the defence attorney

"do not apply to them."

The judge maintains that apparently punishing the infiltrators

themselves is not sufficient.

"We have to make the residents understand that infiltrators

"must not be aided.

"The only way to achieve this result," says the judge, "is to

"make the local population feel that aiding these people is dangerous."

He therefore decides to sentence the defendant before him

to a year-and-a-half in prison.

Justice demands that I, the person documenting the case,

interview the defendant, Arifa Ibrahim.

What does she remember from her trial in 1976?

Why didn't she say anything throughout the proceedings?

The minutes state you were a widow, who did your children stay with?

If you had realised there was a risk,

why did you keep on bringing him food?

Did your punishment actually deter others from having contact

with members of the resistance?

It turns out that Arifa Ibrahim still lives in the village of Beit Fajjar.

Justice demands that I interview her

rather than make do with quotes from her trial

and images of unknown Palestinian women filmed at the same period.

But I do not intend to interview her.

Because this film is not about the people who broke the law.

It's about the people who were charged with upholding it.

HE COUGHS

The image of Palestinians

gathered at the entrance of the Israeli Supreme Court

is one of the key images of the subject I'm documenting.

The Israeli Supreme Court was the first court in history

to contend with a unique challenge.

Doing justice not only for Israeli citizens

but for people that the state is holding under military occupation.

A decade into the occupation,

one of the main issues that the Supreme Court had to address

was Israelis settling in the occupied territories.

In the late 1960s, Israeli citizens began moving to the territories,

claiming that settling these areas is a biblical right.

From a different perspective,

it was argued that Article 49 of the Geneva Convention prohibits

an occupying power from transferring its citizens into the occupied area.

Palestinian opposition to the settlements led to demonstrations

and confrontations between the local residents and the army.

The resistance escalated as some of the settlements were built

on land seized from Palestinian residents by the military.

Land owners received military orders saying that the army

needs their land temporarily for security purposes.

Thus they must vacate the property and receive compensation.

While bulldozers prepare the land,

Adhil Dweikat from the village of Rujeib

petitions the Supreme Court of Israel.

He argues that the seizure of his land,

and that of 11 other residents, is illegal.

Dweikat says to the court,

"There is no real security need behind the seizure of this land.

"The land is being seized for civil rather than military needs

"and this is a blatant violation of international law."

The Supreme Court ruling came months after the land was seized.

The Elon Moreh settlement was already a fact on the ground.

In their decision,

the Supreme Court justices wrote that, "International law indeed

"permits the seizure of personal property for security reasons.

"However," they added,

"they feel that security was not the main reason for this seizure.

"There was another perhaps more important motivation here -

"building a civilian settlement.

"And according to international law,"

write the judges, "such a motivation cannot justify

"seizure of a resident's private property in occupied territory."

The court instructs the regional commander to evacuate the new

settlement and return the land to its Palestinian owners.

As the legal adviser to the commander of the occupied area,

Ramati knew the local land laws dating back to the Jordanian

kingdom and even the Ottoman Empire.

He told Sharon that in the 19th century Ottoman land law

there's a special term - Mawat Land.

Dead land.

This type of land must be far enough from the nearest village

so that one can no longer hear the crow of a rooster

standing at the edge of that village.

According to that old Ottoman law,

such land may belong to a resident only temporarily,

as long as he cultivates it.

But if the resident fails to cultivate the land for three

consecutive years, the dead land reverts to the empire.

And legally speaking, Ramati explains,

the regional military commander is the successor of that empire.

LOUD EXPLOSION

While the construction of new settlements is booming,

another petition is submitted to the Supreme Court.

This time it comes from the villagers of Tarqumia, near Hebron.

Hundreds of acres near their village are declared by the

regional commander to be state land.

The villagers argue before the Supreme Court that even if

certain land could have been considered state land

back in the Jordanian and Ottoman times, international law

still prohibits an occupying power from using this land as it pleases.

The presiding justice was Meir Shamgar -

former Military Advocate General who had been

appointed in 1975 to the Israeli Supreme Court.

In the Al-Nazal case,

Justice Shamgar had to determine what we can or cannot do with

land that is legally considered property of the occupied state.

Shamgar explains that, according to the Hague Treaty,

an occupying army is only a guardian of the occupied state's property.

"The army may not transfer ownership of the property.

"It must safeguard it and return it to the occupied state

"when the occupation ends."

"But despite these prohibitions,"

Shamgar adds, "the Hague Treaty also recognises the right of an

"occupying power to make temporary use of the occupied state's property.

"Under this definition," explains Shamgar,

"the occupied property may be rented, leased or cultivated.

"And therefore, the actions of the military concerning

"occupied state property are compatible with international law."

HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRS

Today, around a half million Israeli citizens

live in the territories conquered in 1967.

Most of them live in settlements built on hundreds of thousands

of acres declared by the military commander to be state land.

Justice Shamgar doesn't see the connection between the Supreme Court

rulings and our settlements in the occupied territories.

But I, the person documenting the issue, see a connection

and I present the rulings and the events as I understand them.

In the film, I rule on what reality is.

The Palestinian residents, on the other hand,

say that they don't see the connection between the Ottoman law

and the establishment of hundreds of new settlements.

The connection was made by legal professionals,

adopted by the government,

upheld by Supreme Court rulings and thus it became law.

CROWD CHANTING AND CLAPPING

DEVICE EXPLODING

SCREAMING AND GUNFIRE

GUNFIRE

In December 1987 the widespread popular uprising breaks out

in the occupied territories.

As the temporary occupation enters its 21st year,

Palestinian frustration erupts into mass demonstrations

and actions against the army and Israeli settlers.

GUN FIRING

The population pays a high price for the uprising

but the occupation comes to the attention

of the international community.

The whole world watches as Israel,

known as the only democracy in the Middle East,

contends with the civilian uprising.

Israel chooses not to give in and retreat from the West Bank, in Gaza,

but, at the same time, not to use its full military force

against the rebellious population.

The goal is to try to make the population obey the law once more.

In the shadow of the familiar images from the intifada period

is the work of a new generation of military legal professionals.

Most of them were not part of the creation of this system

but now they must adapt it to the new reality.

They are the ones who must enforce the law with the local population

but, at the same time, deliver justice.

SPEAKS IN HEBREW

I realise that I am sent to the West Bank by this great flag.

To the people who sit here, opposite it,

if you witness the flag of the enemy and I represent that flag,

but, on the other hand, the other symbol,

which is even higher than the flag, are the scales of justice,

and I always say that I would like to be able,

and I hope I can always love my country, as represented by the flag,

and still love justice, and still uphold justice.

MAN SHOUTING

One of our main means of suppressing the intifada

was imprisoning as many activists as possible.

Over the four-year uprising more than 50,000 people were arrested.

Some of them were arrested a number of times.

Most detainees were charged with felonies and brought to trial.

But according to the British emergency regulations of 1945,

a person can also be incarcerated without being charged.

This kind of administrative arrest is put into effect,

with an order issued by the army, against a particular resident.

The order states that this person constitutes a threat to security

and therefore must be incarcerated for a number of months.

To prevent arbitrary use of these means,

the law stipulated that administrative detainees

must be brought before a judge within 96 hours of their arrest,

in order to examine the necessity of their detention.

Removing the requirement

that every single case of administrative detention be reviewed

made processing these arrests much easier.

Many detainees didn't see the point of appealing and, under new rules,

the army was not required to hold a hearing about their case.

A detainee who demanded to see a judge was brought,

within a number of weeks or months,

before a military officer with legal training.

The interview I conducted with Mr Pesensson

lasted around three hours.

He told me many more things.

For example, that he volunteered to hear these appeals

because, at the time of the intifada,

there were few military legal officers who agreed to do it.

He also told me that he was known as the last judge

to leave the holding camp at night,

since he insisted on reading all of his cases carefully.

One could say, in Pesensson's own words,

that the viewer is only hearing a paraphrase of my interview with him,

since it is I who decides what part of the conversation to show

and what to leave out.

The viewer can't ask Pesensson

what he thinks about how I edited the interview.

The viewer's free to judge persons and words

but all the information comes from me.

HAMMERING ON DOOR

MAN SHOUTING

The measures we used to suppress the uprising

were challenged in the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of petitions filed in those years

and thousands of others that were discussed since then

bring up more than just specific legal questions.

They demonstrate how the Supreme Court,

a staunch defender of individual rights inside Israel,

met with the challenge of defending the rights of Palestinian residents

while faced with demands to permit actions the army defined,

"security imperatives".

Again and again the Supreme Court discussed the punitive demolition

of family homes, in which residents,

suspected of harming Israelis or collaborators, resided.

The court heard numerous petitions against deportations

of suspected leaders of the uprising.

Since the 1990s, the judges had to rule on the severe restrictions

over freedom of movement imposed on the residents

and to contend with the difference

between the rights of Israeli settlers,

and those of Palestinian residents.

In the last decade,

the Supreme Court was asked to stop the practice of targeted killings -

execution, without trial,

of residents who took part in military activity,

who were responsible for it.

Time and again the judges, in fact,

restrained the army's actions against the occupied population.

But the court almost never ruled that an action presented by the army

as a "security imperative" was illegal.

HE LAUGHS

Justice Shamgar is familiar with the text I'm reading to him.

It is one of the harshest, most compelling critiques

written about Israel's rule of law to which Shamgar devoted his life.

After reviewing hundreds of petitions,

the writer finds that the court's intervention did, in fact,

have a restraining effect on the prolonged occupation,

but he dares ask, "Could it be that the very restraining effect,

"as well as the whole balance and check system

"created around the occupation, actually make it more sustainable?"

"Is it possible," he asks,

"that a non-regulated system would have served to delegitimise

"the occupation in the eyes of Israeli society

"and encourage us to end it?"

In September 1999 the Supreme Court of Israel

made one of the rare rulings

in which it went beyond simply restraining the occupation

and nearly abolished one of the practices

used by the security forces.

The court rejected the General Security Service's position,

it ruled that, except in extreme cases,

the use of torture during interrogation is a felony in Israel.

The ruling was given at the end of a decade during which Palestinians,

residents of the occupied territories,

carried out mass suicide attempts in the heart of the State of Israel.

Many voices in the Israeli public blamed the Supreme Court

for setting Palestinians' human rights above our own security.

Public.

CROWD CHANTING

But the process that led to this powerful decision

began 12 years earlier in the 1980s,

long before the large-scale suicide attacks

and even before the uprising.

In 1987, a governmental commission was appointed

to investigate the genuine security service interrogation methods.

The commission determined that, in fact,

since the early years of the occupation, the service had been

using various forms of torture during its interrogations.

The commission also revealed that,

when defendants claimed they were tortured,

it was standard procedure for interrogators

to testify in court and deny the use of force.

The commission emphasised that the judges who had heard

the false testimonies were not aware of this whole system.

Mr Pesensson says that certain people

should interrogate other people

so that I can go to a movie in the evening

or sit across from him and interview him.

He reminds me that in the situation we've reached,

my personal security depends on the violation of the security of others

and that my freedom is at the expense of the freedom of others.

Both making this film and viewing it take place under the auspices

of people who take care of our security and freedom.

Pesensson reminds me that the law I'm documenting might apply

only to other people but is written for me.

WHIZZING TAPE

From case number 2058, in 2011...

..the military prosecutor versus Basim Tamimi.

The defendant addresses the court...

"Your honour, I was born in the same year as the occupation

"and ever since I've been living under its inherent inhumanity,

"inequality, racism and lack of freedom...

"..I've been incarcerated nine times in my life, amounting to almost

"three years in prison, though I was never convicted of any felony.

"During one of my detentions I was paralysed as the result of torture.

"My wife has also been detained, my children wounded,

"my land stolen by settlers

"and now my house is slated for demolition.

"International law recognises that occupied people

"have the right to resist.

"Following my belief in this right, I organise popular demonstrations

"against the theft of more than half of the land of my village.

"Against the settler attacks, against the occupation.

"You, who claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East,

"are trying me under laws written by authorities I've not elected,

"authorities which do not represent me in any way.

"For me, these laws do not exist. They are meaningless.

"The military prosecutor accuses me of inciting protestors

"to throw stones at soldiers.

"What actually incited them was the occupation's bulldozers on our land,

"the sound of guns and the smell of tear gas.

"And if the military judge decides to release me,

"will I be convinced that there is justice in your courts?"

Basim Tamimi, from the village of Nabi Saleh,

is standing trial in the military court

at the same time that work on this film is being concluded.

I will probably move on to document another subject.

The audience has finished watching the reality that has been

presented before them and can now go back to everyday reality.

Basim Tamimi waits under arrest for his judgement.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd