“Under current military orders in the West Bank, the following activities are defined as threats to the security of Israel: putting up political posters, writing political slogans, participating in demonstrations and belonging to any political party.”

Interestingly enough, what counts as exercising first amendment rights in the United States counts as a “security threat” in Israel–if you’re Palestinian. A recently published report by law students from Stanford and Berkeley conducted in the field in 2006 reveals a number of startling facts about the status of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli legal system.

Some of the most startling information:

• At least 765 of the currently 9,493 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are “administrative detainees” meaning that they are “held on secret evidence, do not have a right to a trial, and can be held for six-month periods that can be renewed indefinitely.” Furthermore, all “Palestinians detained by the Israeli military can be barred access to a lawyer for 90 days and held without being charged for 188 days.”
• Lawyers cannot have private interviews with their clients, and are only able to visit their clients “a few days each week,” “in violation of Israeli prison ordinances.” All confidential documents must be given to prison guards in order to reach the client. Furthermore, lawyers from the West Bank and Gaza cannot visit their clients, who are illegally held in prisons within Israel, “without permission from the Israeli military,” which is nearly impossible to get, especially for lawyers from Gaza.
• “Lawyers from the West Bank and Gaza can neither represent clients in Israeli civil courts nor appeal military court decisions to the Israeli High Court.”
• “Because it is so difficult for lawyers to visit prisons, the majority of client interviews are conducted at the military courts in the minutes before a prisoner’s hearing begins.”
• Military courts are not required to “publish the decisions of military judges,” and no justification is required other than stating that “their approval of a detention order was based on ’secret evidence.’”

These factors and a number of others are covered in great depth in the final 29-page report, which can be downloaded here. There is also a shorter summary in a recent edition of CounterPunch, which can be downloaded here.

The information in these reports challenges the notion that Palestinians can receive a fair trial in the Israeli court system–both military and civil–and also exposes the Israeli legal system for what it is when it comes to Palestinians: a tool of the occupation.