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- Law professor warns that Israel’s planned expulsion of its citizens from their homes would violate international law which protects human rights and civil liberties.
Eliav Schochetman, Hebrew Professor of Law Emeritus and Dean of the Shaari Mishpat Law College, gave a short interview to Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron on the subject of “The implications of forcible expulsion in the light of Israeli civil rights law and in light of international law”
Regarding the constraints on such matters in Israel, Prof. Schochetman mentioned the state of Israel preserves its democratic system under the constraints of ” The Israel Basic Human Rights Law” which oversees Israeli democratic institutions in matters of human rights and civil liberties, much as the US Bill of Rights ensures that the US government can never trample on the human rights and civil liberties of American citizens.
That Israeli Basic Human Rights Law is based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which all democratic governments are adherents.
Prof. Schochetman asserted that in the current situation, given the legal precedents from Israeli court cases and from court cases around the world, any Israeli government decision to expel people from their homes, even in the context of a diplomatic move, would represent a wanton violation of basic human rights and civil liberties that are protected under Israeli and international human rights law.
Prof. Schochetman cited clause 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,which states that it is illegal for sovereign governments to expel their own citizens from their homes, their private properties or from their farms.
Since the only group slated for expulsion would be Jews, it may be recalled that the government of Serbia was recently held liable for international prosecution at the International High Court of Justice in the Hague, under the charge of “ethnic cleansing”, after leaders of Serbia expelled an ethnic minority, solely because of their religion.
Prof. Shochetman noted that no expulsion of landowners in Katif or Samaria could take place without a decision of Israel’s Knesset parliament that would hold up under international human rights law and Israeli civil liberties statutes.
No scheduled session of the Knesset has been planned to deal with the issue of international human rights law and Israeli civil liberties in the context of the Sharon Plan
