This month Adalah speaks with former Adalah Attorney Jamil Dakwar. Jamil started his legal career by working as an attorney with Adalah from 1998-2002. During his work, he represented on important cases before the Israeli courts. One of his representations before the Supreme Court concerned the status of the Arabic language in Israel and is considered a landmark case. Jamil also represented Adalah in many international fora. Jamil then worked as a research fellow at Human Rights Watch, and is currently the Advocacy Director and head of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Adalah’s Board and staff are very proud of Jamil’s achievements and successes in promoting and defending human rights around the world.

What inspired you to enter the field of human rights law?

What inspired me to become a human rights lawyer was the political reality which I grew up in and got to know well, mainly through my political activism as a student both at high school and at Tel Aviv University, where I attended law school. I was appalled and outraged by the manifestations of racism, both institutional and societal, against Arab citizens in general and Arab students in particular.

As part of my student activities, I was elected to lead the Arab Students’ Committee at Tel Aviv University and also co-founded the Arab Students’ Movement, Jafra, which called for group rights, social justice and respect for human rights. I was also a founding member of the first Arab political party to call for Israel to become “state of all its citizens.” Eventually I had to find a way to realize those ideals or at least make them more practical, and I think that a human rights framework and public interest advocacy and litigation were a way for me to defend and promote the rights of the Palestinians in Israel.

What were the most challenging cases that you worked on in Adalah?

I want to mention three cases or issues that I was involved in. The first was leading two language rights cases, starting with a petition against Israel’s Public Works Authority, the body responsible for the installment of national road signs, and the Ministry of Infrastructure. The petition challenged a policy of the PWA to post almost all of the national road signs solely in Hebrew and English, without Arabic, even though Arabic is an official language of the state, spoken and used by the Palestinian native community, which comprises 20% of Israel’s population. In this case we brought many arguments relating to the collective rights of the Palestinians in Israel and the right to language as part of the right to human dignity. In that regard it was a ground-breaking, landmark case that opened the way for a large number of language rights’ cases subsequently filed by Adalah and others. In this case we settled with the government, which committed to replace all the national road signs within five years with signs showing Arabic. At the time only 20% of the national road signs included Arabic, but all included Hebrew and English.

Following this case I brought another important language rights case that Adalah filed with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel against the five mixed cities Ramle, Lod, Yaffa, Natseret Illit and Akka (Acre). We demanded that these municipalities, which have a significant percentage of Arab inhabitants, add Arabic to all traffic, warning and other informational public signs in their jurisdiction. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled 2-1 in our favor and this precedent-setting case has become the leading language rights case bolstering Arabic as the second official language of the state. The majority opinion, however, refused to recognize our claim for language rights based on national group rights.

Another main case that I worked on concerns the recognition of the unrecognized village of Kammaneh in the Galilee. This case was very challenging because it was the first case in which Adalah or any other public interest organization had demanded the intervention of the Supreme Court in the land planning process as regards to the recognition of a particular community. Like the many other communities that have lacked and still lack recognition, it existed before the establishment of Israel. However, when Israel finally decided to officially recognize the community in 1995 they excluded significant portions of it, including the neighborhood of al-Jelasi. This exclusion was largely based on discriminatory factors, as the authorities claimed that recognizing or adding these neighborhoods to the village would endanger the future development of nearby Jewish communities, which had of course been founded on land confiscated from its Arab owners.

In 2001 we got a favorable ruling in which the Supreme Court ordered the district planning committee to submit an expanded version of the plan to recognize Kammaneh to include the previously excluded western neighborhood and Al-Jelasi within eighteen months. We felt that this ruling was an important victory because for the first time we had made the Supreme Court address this issue. We were always very concerned about bringing cases involving land and planning rights because the Israeli courts have a long history of rubber-stamping decisions regarding land confiscations from Palestinians relating to land and housing. Unfortunately, however, this was not the end and the people of al-Jelasi continued their struggle even after I left Adalah, and they had to return to the Supreme Court. In 2005, Adalah filed a motion for contempt of court, as during the years since the ruling was issued the planning authorities had failed to fulfill their obligations and failed to submit a plan for Kammaneh that included al-Jelasi. The planning authorities submitted a master plan for Kammaneh incorporating Al-Jelasi at the end of 2005, finally giving it official recognition.

Another one of my most challenging cases developed in the context of the beginning of the Second Intifada. I was one of a group of lawyers who coordinated a large effort to represent almost a thousand detainees - Arab citizens of Israel - who were rounded up by the Israeli security forces during the first days and weeks of October 2000. The Supreme Court denied release on bond to almost all detainees, even minors. It was a form of collective punishment and an act of deterrence to silence dissent and solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. There were also many cases of police brutality and ill-treatment which were never properly investigated by the courts or the Attorney General’s Office. Here Adalah, for the first time, played a significant grassroots role. Within a matter of days we had convened a meeting attended by around 150 Arab lawyers that aimed to coordinate the effort to defend and represent the hundreds of detainees, particularly given that the Public Defender’s Office could not fulfill this role. It was crucial in the context of the hostility towards Palestinians in general from the Israeli public and towards the demonstrations and clashes that led to the deaths of thirteen unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel and the injury of many hundreds of others. It was also an effort that led onto to the second important role that Adalah played in these events, which was to seek accountability and justice for the families of the thirteen young men killed by the police through the official Or Commission of Inquiry and subsequently the Ministry of Justice. The Palestinians in Israel were once again being openly portrayed as enemies of the state, and Adalah was there to defend and promote their rights and to make sure that their legitimacy was not undermined.

What did you take from your time as an attorney in Adalah to your work at Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union?

I think that the most important thing that I took from my time in Adalah is how to effectively employ legal principles, norms and mechanisms in the fight against injustice and discrimination, and how to strategically use pressure points that lead to change and effective remedies. Law and the courts often offer marginalized and suppressed groups legitimacy and a sense of inclusion. I learned in Adalah how to utilize legal instruments in the service of the cause without risking co-option and further subordination. I also took credibility and professionalism in terms of the way of defending and protecting people’s rights, as well as the ability to be involved in non-litigation advocacy. You do not only go to court, but also you take other actions. This is one of the most important of Adalah’s achievements, advocacy outside the court, including international advocacy, and all kinds of public education work, whether it’s Adalah’s Review or Adalah’s Newsletter.