Israeli Occupation

The Israeli occupation entails military rule and control over Palestinian territories and people.[1] Affecting every aspect of Palestinian life, the Israeli military and government determines whether Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza can travel, work, access basic infrastructure needs such as water and electricity, seek appropriate medical care, and protest.[2] Administered primarily through military law, the occupation hinders Palestinians’ freedom of movement through numerous checkpoints and roadblocks. It also impedes Palestinians’ access to farmland, family support networks, income-generating activity, education, and medical care.[3] Many Palestinians experience harassment at Israeli checkpoints as a daily reality, in violation of Palestinians’ basic human rights.[4]

Due to the growth of exclusively Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are restricted from accessing land and using particular roads open to Jewish-Israeli settlers, and face shortages of water that is often redirected to Jewish-only settlements.[5] In Gaza, where Israel claims sole authority over airspace, land and border-crossings, and the maritime coast, Palestinians face severe shortages of electricity, clean water, essential goods, and medical supplies. Ongoing house demolitions by the Israeli government in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem contribute to economic, health, and emotional insecurity.[6] Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank also face the highest unemployment rates in the world, according to a UN report from 2018.[7] Criminalization of Palestinian resistance to the occupation takes place through home raids, extra-judicial imprisonment, and child detention, a theme we see in Advocate.[8] Due to the differential legal and institutional treatment accorded to Palestinians by the Israeli government, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has recommended Israel to amend or revoke all racially discriminatory legislation that violates the human rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.[9]

As the longest running military occupation in the modern world, the Israeli occupation is often dated to June 7, 1967 when, following the Six-Day War, the State of Israel occupied the Palestinian territories known as the West Bank and Gaza.[10] However, as a number of scholars have pointed out, the origins of the Israeli occupation of Palestine pre-date 1967, lying in earlier settler colonial events such as the founding of the State of Israel in Palestine and the large-scale migration of predominantly European Jews to Palestine from the late nineteenth century onwards.

Many European Jews began establishing colonies in Palestine in the 1880s in response to European anti-Semitism, while other waves continued through the first half of the twentieth century. Following the 1917 Balfour Declaration, through which the League of Nations placed Palestine under British administration, the British declared Palestine “a national home for the Jewish people” to the exclusion of native Palestinians. During the British Mandate period (1918-1948), Palestine witnessed burgeoning immigration of European Jewish populations, often fleeing anti-Semitic violence, as well as immigration of Middle Eastern Jews. Immigration peaked in the 1930s with the growth of Nazism and fascism.

At the close of World War II, the British ceded decision-making power to the United Nations. In the immediate aftermath of the UN resolution in November 1947 for the partition of Palestine among Jews and native Palestinians, the first Israeli-Palestinian war broke out. This war culminated in the Israeli Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, the expulsion, forcing into exile, and fleeing of 750,000 Palestinians, and the creation of the Palestinian refugee population across Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, among other territories. While these events are known as the War of Independence by Israelis, Palestinians refer to it as al-Nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” as Israeli forces destroyed 418 Palestinian villages, preventing a now refugee population from returning to their homes.[11]

Legal Discrimination and Cultural Erasure

Following the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, 150,000 Palestinians remained inside what then became known as Israel. Today there are 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, comprising twenty percent of the population.[12] Over sixty-five laws in Israel discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, imposing strict measures on Palestinians’ political, civil, social, legal, cultural, and land and housing rights.[13] Because Israel formally defines itself as “the state of the Jewish people,” Jews are granted dominance and privilege in all aspects of institutional and political life.[14]

Politically, Palestinian citizens of Israel have been absent from every ruling coalition of political parties since 1948. Within government ministries, only two out of 648 ministerial appointments have ever been made to Palestinian citizens of Israel[1]. Outside of formal decision-making arenas, government policies discriminate against Palestinian-Israelis who wish to settle and develop land. Despite comprising twenty percent of the population, Palestinians own only 2.5 percent of public land. In comparison, the State of Israel and the “quasi-governmental” Jewish National Fund own ninety-three percent of the land, and actively restrict Palestinian citizens’ ability to buy and use land.[15]

Beyond formal political exclusions, Palestinians face cultural and linguistic erasure. In contrast, exclusively Jewish symbols--such as the national flag, national celebration of Jewish holidays and historical events, and the predominance of Hebrew--pervade all aspects of public life. In contrast, the Arabic names of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948, and the ongoing lack of recognition of Palestinian villages, contribute to the erasure of Palestinian history and collective life.[16] While Arabic is an official state language, it is used only occasionally in a formal capacity alongside Hebrew.[17] One example of Israeli historical erasure of Palestinian collective identity is the 2011 “Nakba Bill,” which financially penalizes organizations and institutions that mark Israeli Independence Day as the Palestinian Nakba.[18] Most recently, Israel’s 2018 Israeli Nation-State Law declares that Arabic is no longer an official language and that Jews “have an exclusive right to national self-determination,” while promoting Jewish settlement throughout historic Palestine.[19]

The formally ethno-racial nature of the state has widespread impacts on other non-Jewish populations as well, such as migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe,[20] and Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers.[21]

The Case of Ahmad Mansara

The documentary focuses on Lea Tsemel’s defense of Ahmad Mansara (alternatively spelled Ahmed Mansarah), a 13-year-old Palestinian. Ahmad is arrested after allegedly helping Hassan, his 15-year-old cousin, attack a teenager and man in Pisgat Ze’ev, an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. While Ahmad’s cousin is killed by Israeli police, footage captures Ahmad--who is run over by an Israeli driver as he tries to flee and is seriously injured-- being arrested amidst bystanders shouting and urging the police to kill him.[22] At the time of Ahmad’s arrest, Israeli law prohibited imprisoning children under the age of fourteen.[23] The documentary captures Ahmad’s journey through the Israeli court system, including leaked footage of his interrogation where several adults are seen yelling at Ahmad, to the media’s portrayal of Ahmad as a terrorist, to ultimately his initial 12-year prison sentence for attempted murder.[24] Following this case, in August 2016, the Israeli parliament passed legislation that allows Israeli authorities to imprison minors as young as 12 years old for serious crimes.[25]