New Board of Directors of Adalah
On 13 February 2014, Adalah held its annual General Assembly at which a new Board of Directors and Audit Control Committee were elected, and on 11 March 2014, the new Board held its first meeting. The new Board has elected human rights attorney Hussein Abu Hussein as its Chairman.
The new board is comprised of 7 members, five men and two women. Returning members are:
- Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein: Attorney Abu Hussein has worked as a human rights lawyer since 1976, specializing in land, compensation, and prisoners’ rights issues. He has been active in human rights as well as art organizations for many years.
- Odeh Bisharat: Mr. Bisharat is a journalist, who writes frequently for Ha’aretz.
- Attorney Salma Wakeem: Attorney Wakim manages a private law office in Nahariya that specializes in compensation and traffic law.
New members are:
- Dr. Eman Abu Hanna: Dr. Hanna is the head of the educational department in the Academic Arab College for Education in Israel – Haifa.
- Professor George Kenazi: Prof. Kenazi is a lecturer in the Arabic language department at Haifa University. He is also the Director of the Academic Institute in Nazareth.
- Dr. Ahmad Natour: Dr. Natour served as a Qadi (Judge) from 1985 and then as President of the Shari’a Court of Appeals in Israel from 1994-2013. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Hebrew University.
- Attorney Naseem Shaqr: Attorney Shaqr is an independent lawyer in Yaffa. He is a former member of the Tel Aviv-Yaffa Municipality, and the Central Committee and the General Council of the Israel Bar Association. He is a founder of Arab NGO, Arrabita.
The new Audit Control Committee is compromised of: Dr. Mahmoud Yazbak and Dr. Hala Khoury-Bisharat, the previous two Chairpersons of Adalah’s Board of Directors.
At its meeting, the new Board also elected a financial committee and a hiring committee. It also discussed important new laws recently passed by the Knesset that have a discriminatory and negative impact on Palestinian citizens of Israel. These new laws include the “Governance Law”, which raises the threshold for Knesset election from 2% to 3.25% of the vote (Arab political parties have not received over 3% of the vote historically), and the “Sectarian Representation Law”, which seeks to divide the Arab community into Muslims, Christians and Druze for representation on an equal employment opportunity commission. Adalah and other civil society organizations vehemently opposed both of these news laws.
Concerning financial matters, the General Assembly discussed and approved the Audited Financial Report of Adalah for 2012, and the new Board reviewed the approved budget for 2014, including the expenditures and sources of income.
Dr. Hala Khoury-Bisharat thanked Adalah’s staff and board, noting in particular the professional interaction between them throughout her tenure as Chairperson. She also congratulated the incoming Chairman and assured him of full cooperation for the transition. Dr. Khoury-Bisharat also noted that, “Adalah had a great legal and political achievement during the last year, the freezing of the Prawer Plan bill. Also of great importance, institutionally for the organization, was the approval of Adalah’s organizational manual, including a final structure and updated work rules and procedures for the employees.”
Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein stated that, "The previous Board led Adalah coherently and achieved a milestone in expanding Adalah's fields of work and cases. It achieved crucial successes during its tenure, the most important perhaps is standing strongly against the Prawer bill.”
Attorney Abu Hussein also emphasized that, "In the coming period, we will be facing great challenges. We will face the Israeli Zionist discourse that puts the Jewish state at the center and discriminatory laws as the priority, while the majority of political parties work to promote this racist vision of the State. The biggest challenge for us as Adalah is how we can face these projects legally and professionally, and also together, popularly, with the rest of the Palestinian community.”
