Israel is bracing itself for a battle in the United Nations over proposed sanctions against the Jewish state, following a decision by the country’s highest court to uphold the temporary expulsion last month of 415 Palestinian activists from the administered territories.
At the United Nations, the Palestine Liberation Organization has already begun circulating a draft resolution imposing sanctions on Israel for failing to comply with an earlier Security Council measure calling for the deportees’ immediate return.
Arab states were pushing for the council to convene as early as Friday. But Israeli officials said no session had been scheduled and felt it unlikely that the body’s 15 members would reach consensus on further action that quickly.
The much-awaited ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice, handed down Thursday morning, backed the government’s Dec. 17 move to expel for up to two years the group of Palestinians, accused of leading Islamic fundamentalist organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
However, the court also demanded that the government allow each deportee the right to appeal his expulsion in person before a military tribunal.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government hailed the seven justices’ unanimous decision as a “retroactive vindication” of the deportation and said it would immediately comply with the court’s requirements regarding the deportees’ right of appeal.
The government quickly announced the establishment of 14 military appeal tribunals and said the army would facilitate confidential meetings between the deportees and their attorneys.
The deportees are currently living in a makeshift tent camp on a stretch of land in southern Lebanon between border checkpoints manned on one side by the Israeli army and its allied militia, the South Lebanon Army, and on the other side by the Lebanese army.
PALESTINIANS SAY THEY WON’T APPEAL
Reports from the Israeli checkpoint at Zumriya said that Israeli army bulldozers were already in action, building meeting places for the deportees to talk to their attorneys.
The army announced it would permit any deportee to submit an appeal starting Friday morning, when soldiers were to be posted at the checkpoint to meet with representatives of the deportees.
Israel has also asked the Red Cross to help relay information back and forth among the deportees, their attorneys and Israeli officials.
The government said it would independently review the cases of those deportees who chose not to submit appeals — which might include most of the group, judging from the initial Palestinian reactions.
A spokesman for the deportees, Abdel Azziz Rantissi, responded to the court ruling by declaring there would be no appeals. Rantissi referred to Rabin and to the court justices as terrorists and Nazis, saying the world would now wait to see whether-the Israeli court or the U.N. Security Council was the more powerful.
The court decision did not give the government the blanket right to expel Palestinians without affording a prior opportunity to appeal the order. In fact, the court struck down a government proposal to introduce a regulation to that effect.
However, the court held that the individual deportation orders issued against each of the 415 deportees were valid under existing legislation since the ability to appeal the orders beforehand was not absolutely necessary if extenuating circumstances existed.
To the government’s delight, the court, in its 40-page judgment, dwelt at length on the dangerous characteristics of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Islamic fundamentalists groups to which most of the deportees belong.
Rabin, in a near-jubilant speech to his Labor Party executive committee in Tel Aviv, said Thursday that this part of the judgment was the finest description of the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism he ever read.
RABIN MEETS WITH U.S. ENVOY
Saying the document would help Israel explain its actions to the outside world, the prime minister gave orders to have it translated into English and other languages.
He scoffed at “media scribblers” who predicted the government would compromise on the issue.
But in an indication of concern over the diplomatic ramifications of the court decision, Rabin met Thursday with the U.S. ambassador to Israel, William Harrop. There were no immediate details of the meeting.
On the right of the political spectrum in Israel, there was rejoicing over the court ruling, with Likud Knesset member Benjamin Netanyahu voicing “gratification” at the result.
Rafael Eitan, leader of the right-wing Tsomet party, urged the government not to allow the deportees back, even in order to lodge their appeals. Eitan said Israel should make arrangements to hold any appeal hearings inside Lebanon.
At the other end of the spectrum, Israeli attorney Leah Tsemel, who defended several of the deportees before the High Court, castigated the ruling for opening the way to mass deportations in the future.
Another civil rights attorney defending the Palestinians, Avigdor Feldman, said the government should allow the deportees back to Israel to appear before appeal tribunals held here.
Most Palestinian and Israeli Arab leaders were critical in their reactions to the court decision. Hanan Ashrawi, spokeswoman for the Palestinian peace negotiations team, said justice had not been served.
A group of Jewish and Arab demonstrators who have pitched a tent outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem in sympathy with the deportees said they would stay put as long as the deportees are forced to stay in southern Lebanon.
(Contributing to this report was JTA correspondent Larry Yudelson at the United Nations.)
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