Behind the Headlines: Deportation Policy Has Its Roots in Laws Used During British Mandate

There is more than a little irony in Israel’s policy of deporting Palestinian troublemakers.

Nineteen have been expelled from the administered territories during the past two years and deportation orders were issued against nine others Sunday. The legal basis derives from the British Mandate’s defense emergency regulations of 1945.

The irony lies in the fact that those very same regulations were applied to deport members of Haganah and of the dissident underground Irgun and Stern gang to such places as Kenya and the Seychelles before Israel was founded.

Many of the Israeli leaders now deporting Palestinians were once members of Haganah, the Irgun or the Sternists.

On the diplomatic front, Israel’s expulsions have elicited uniform condemnation from its Western friends and allies. It is based on the Geneva Conventions, especially the Fourth Convention of 1949 on the rights and obligations of occupying powers, which states that deportations must not be carried out from territories occupied during war.

Israeli officials and experts on international law point out that the relevant text — paragraph 49 — refers to the mass deportations of populations from territories of another nation captured in war.

Foreign Ministry legal expert Ronni Sabel stresses that neither the West Bank nor the Gaza Strip can be regarded as “foreign territory” and that there is no question of “mass deportations.” The expulsions apply only to a relatively few agitators and ringleaders.

‘DISRUPTIVE INDIVIDUALS’

An Israel Defense Force spokesman further narrowed it down to “particularly disruptive individuals” in “exceptional circumstances, when previous means have proved insufficient to stop activity presenting a clear and present danger to the security or public safety of the region.”

Sabel observed that the differentiation between “mass deportations” and the expulsions ordered by Israel has been borne out by the International Red Cross and prominent international legal experts.

It has also been upheld by numerous rulings of Israel’s Supreme Court.

Moreover, the court rulings extend the safeguards of due legal process to potential deportees. They may appeal the expulsion orders to a military board of review and, if unsuccessful, to the high court itself.

Sabel and other Israeli jurists also maintain that Israel is not “deporting” individuals in the generally accepted meaning of the word.

Rather, Israel is transferring West Bank residents (who still hold Jordanian passports and are governed by Jordanian law), administered by Israel in a territory not incorporated into Israel, from one part of what Jordan still considers its territory to another part of that territory across the Jordan River.

JORDAN CAN’T REFUSE DEPORTEES

According to Sabel, refusal by Jordan to accept such individuals would be illegal, because no country may, under international law, refuse to accept its own citizens deported from another country.

But that reasoning has dangerous pitfalls. It can be interpreted as implying that the West Bank remains a part of Jordan, a view that is anathema to Israeli right-wingers.

If Israel has to incorporate the West Bank, as the right-wing parties demand, it would be deporting its own citizens, and Jordan would have the legal right to refuse to accept them.

To resolve the dilemma, Israeli officials say the political echelon must seek a compromise between the demands of the Defense Ministry and the military authorities, who stress security with little regard for Israel’s image around the world, and those of the Foreign Ministry, whose prime concern is diplomatic relations.

In addition to the nine Palestinians under deportation orders, there are presently about 50 in administrative detention, according to sources in the IDF.

This, too, is a holdover from the British Mandate, which allows preventive arrests and detentions for up to six months without formal charges.

Other punitive measures allowed are restricted movements and bans on travel abroad for persons classified as “political subversion activists” who, the IDF says, “may exploit stays abroad for the escalation of such subversive activity.”