Adalah's Review Volume 5 - On Criminalization (Spring 2009)
One of the uses to which Israel puts its criminal justice system is as a means of removing political acts and expression by Palestinian citizens of Israel from the sphere of legitimate action, thereby neutralizing the political dimension of such acts and expression. Similarly, military courts and prisons, operating with the naked force of power and suspending certain rights, play a major role in the criminalization of the Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the repression of their resistance to the Occupation.
Volume 5 of Adalah’s Review takes as its point of departure a theme raised in the previous volume, the question of political dissent by Palestinians – in this case dissent by Palestinian citizens of Israel and the occupied Palestinian population – and explores ways in which dissent has been criminalized. The articles in this volume examine a range of channels pursued by Israel to this end, including holding political trials of Palestinian political leaders, legislation aimed at further entrenching the criminalization of political dissent, the operation of the military court system, and the creation of the category of “security prisoner” within the Israeli prison system, which imposes additional restrictions and punishments on incarcerated Palestinian political prisoners. The discussion of criminalization is then expanded to the United States and the arrest and administrative detention of large numbers of Arab and Muslim men within a system of immigration related detention following the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The volume closes by considering the development of universal jurisdiction as a means of imposing international criminal accountability on government officials for war crimes.
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