Leah Zemel, a Jerusalem lawyer, has been forbidden to defend soldiers on military trial. The decision was made last week by a committee of senior jurists, on the grounds that she is a member of a Marxist organization which supports the Palestine Liberation Organization and its ideology and is thus considered a “definite security risk. The committee chairman is Justice Meir Shamgar and its members are Attorney General Aharon Barak, the chief army counsel, and two civil lawyers.
In a previous decision the committee decided to ban another left-wing lawyer, Felicia Langer, from appearing before military courts for the same reason. She met several times this year with PLO delegates in Europe, as did Sheli leaders Arye Eliav, Uri Avneri and Matityahu Peled. Ms. Langer appealed the decision before the Supreme Court but it is still pending.
Zemel is a member of an organization called the Revolutionary Communist League. The committee’s decision was based on an article which appeared last year in a periodical published by the League, which said, in part:
“Every solution to the Judeo-Palestinian conflict must follow the liquidation of the colonial Zionist movement. . . . Our task is to warn of illusions that a solution can be based on the partition of Palestine between a puppet Palestinian state and a Zionist Jewish State. . . whereas we ought to demand the immediate and unconditional retreat of all the territories occupied in 1967, this will not bring to an end the Palestinian struggle for national liberation. It will continue until the Palestinian Arab people will restore all its national rights in the entire territory of Palestine-Eretz Yisrael.”
The committee ruled that “any lawyer appearing before a military court comes across classified information. Revealing such information to a person who by his own declaration supports the liquidation of the State of Israel, may create a definite security risk.” The ban applies only to courts trying soldiers. Zemel and Langer will continue to be able to appear before military courts trying civilians–mainly Arabs tried on security violations.
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