Photo by: Asala IgbariyaOn Sunday (1 September, 2013) the government began to discuss a draft bill proposed by MK Orit Struk that would apply Israel’s Women’s Employment Law to all workers in the West Bank. It was published on the weekend that the Attorney General opposes the bill as the very step of implementing an Israeli law within occupied territory is a key step towards annexation, even if is under the guise of concern for women’s rights.
Attorney Tamar Feldman, Director of ACRI’s Human Rights in the Occupied Territories Department, responded to the report by claiming that: “The bill put forward by MK Struk is just another brick in the legally discriminatory and twisted wall that has been built over the 46 years since the beginning of the occupation. Two separate legal systems apply to two different populations both of whom live in the West Bank. Settlers in the West Bank are subject to the sophisticated Israeli legal system, while the Palestinians on the other hand, are subjected to the military legal system. Reports of the Attorney General’s outrage to the idea of annexation are surprising owing to his years of silence on the matter. His prolonged silence, as well as that of his predecessors, has caused severe harm to the concept of equality in the legal regime in the Occupied Territories.”
Attorney Feldman continued: “Israeli labor laws are applied today, in practice, to all workers in the settlements. Therefore, MK Struk’s bill would have no effect on the situation of any such employee. Military law, which applies to Palestinians employed by Palestinians, possesses no such protections for women’s rights.”
