This Law has opened in a separate window so that you can study it simultaneously with other documents.
To search for a word, use the "find" function in the Edit Menu at the top of your browser.
To close or minimalize this page, click in the appropriate box in the upper right corner.


ISRAELI EMERGENCY REGULATIONS

& THE DEFENSE (EMERGENCY) REGULATIONS OF 1945

by David A. Kirshbaum


Historic Basis for Emergency Regulations

Many governments reserve the right to pass legislation during times of emergency which they would not pass during normal times. Such "emergency" legislation or regulations is usually distinguished by compromising the freedoms and civil liberties that are enjoyed by the local population during normal times. Such a procedure has been OK'ed in international law - in the Hague Regulations of 1907, and in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Another example is the Patriot Act of 2001 which the American government adapted following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 which compromised American civil liberties in order to increase prevention and protections against terrorism.

Throughout the years of the British Mandate in Palestine, the British Mandate government adopted many emergency measures in response to the violence between the British and the Zionist groups and the Arab groups. The most important of these were the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, which are examined in depth later in this article.

Legislative Basis for Emergency Regulations

In its first piece of legislation following the founding of the State of Israel, the Provisional Council of State (the provisional legislature) passed the Law and Administrative Ordinance (19 May 1948) which says in Article 9 (a) & (b) --
  • (a) If the Provisional Council of State deems it expedient so to do, it may declare that a state of emergency exists in the State, and upon such declaration being published in the Official Gazette, the Provisional Government may authorise the Prime Minister or any other Minister to make such emergency regulations as may seem to him expedient in the interests.of the defence of the State, public security and the maintenance of supplies and essential services.
  • (b) An emergency regulation may alter any law, suspend its effect or modify it, and may also impose or increase taxes or other obligatory payments.

Thus, as long as the Israeli legislature (soon to become the Knesset) kept renewing its declaration of a state of emergency, then it was empowered to pass emergency legislation which could violate normal principles of civil liberty as the Knesset saw fit or needed. And this it did, and thus the State of Israel has lived in a state of emergency for more than half a century, and the Knesset has passed and renewed emergency legislation covering a wide range of areas of Israeli society and commerce, from the movement of sea-going vessels to the taxation of tobacco.

Emergency Legislation Becomes Ordinary Legislation

There are many examples of emergency legislation becoming ordinary legislation. Some examples of this are the Registration of Inhabitants (1949) and Prevention of Infiltration Law (1954). An important example of this is how parts of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations were adopted into formal legislation in the Occupied Territories in the form of the Israeli Military Order 378 ().

Abuse of Emergency Regulations to Facilitate Oppression and Exploitation

The passage of Emergency Regulations during times of national emergency to secure security and military goals is used widely. The problem is the potential of such legislation to be abused by undemocratic, authoritarian or even fascist governments to enable them to exploit their own population, or the population in territories they control. This is the situation we find in Israel and the adjacent Palestinian territories Israel controls.

The State of Israel was started by Zionist organizations originating in Europe during the late 1800's.

Israeli Emergency Regulations and International Law

Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945: A Special Case

The Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 are the epitomy of all of the above.

Following World War I, the British Government had been fulfilling a mandate given them by the League of Nations to administer the area of Palestine until independent Government systems could be established amongst the people who lived there.

But by the end of World War II, the conflict between the native Palestinians, European Jews that had immigrated there and the British had become so violent that in 1945 the British Government issued a drastic set of regulations in order to control the situation that severely violated human rights according to internationally accepted norms. These regulations were known as the Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945. Many on both sides of the conflict protested these regulations intensely.

Then, the day Britain's mandate came to an end in May, 1948, the British Government rescinded these regulations, and published notice of this in an official law gazette in London. Israel the next day declared itself a State, and then soon after that declared an official state of emergency. Then upon declaring the state of emergency, it began immediately using emergency regulations against the Palestinian rebellion (except for those pertaining to Jewish immigration and activities such as Regulations 102 & 107c, rescinded in the Law and Administration Ordinance, Article 13, passed May 15, 1948). When criticized for using these extreme measures against Palestinians when they themselves had so vigorously protested when the British Mandate Government had used the same measures against them, the Israeli government (with the support of the Israeli Supreme Court) said that the British Government had not cancelled the regulations correctly by NOT publishing the cancellation in newspapers in Palestine where the regulations were applied, but only in London. The government and the court declared that laws that were passed but not published where they were to be implemented were called "unpublished laws" and were thus considered to be invalid. They even passed an amendment on August 24, 1949 to the Law and Administration Ordinance stating this. But this still did not answer the question why would Israel begin using laws that they themselves had earlier found repugnant and had protested vigorously.

Over the years, the Israeli Government has continued to cancel and modify some of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, but mostly it has added more as it has continued to extend its declared state of emergency (please see the Index of Israeli Laws for a list of some of the post-1948 emergency regulations).

For example, even though the Prevention of Infiltration Law of 1954 is not labelled as an official "Emergency Regulation", it extends the applicability of the Defence (Emergency) Regulation 112 of 1945 giving the Minister of Defence extraordinary powers of deportation for accused infiltrators even before they are convicted (Articles 30 & 32), and makes itself subject to cancellation when the Knesset ends the State of Emergency upon which all of the Emergency Regulations are dependent. Another example is how the Israeli Military Commander in the Occupied Territories enacted Military Order 378 (and its amendments) to replace Defence (Emergency) Regulations 110 and 111 (concerning 'area detention' and 'administrative detention'), and refine procedures for their implementation and review.

Then the Israeli Government wrote a military order applying them in the Occupied Territories shortly after beginning their military occupation there in 1967.

From a civil rights point of view, the most important Defence (Emergency) Regulations (1945) are:

Below is the full Table of Contents of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945:

----------------------------TABLE OF CONTENTS----------------------------

Supplement No. 2
to
The Palestine Gazette No. 1442 of 27th September, 1945.

THE DEFENCE (EMERGENCY) REGULATIONS, 1945.


Return: to the BEGINNING of this document.


SOURCES:
Bash, Tami; Ginbar, Yuval; & Felner, Eitan. "Deportation of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, and the Mass Deportation of December, 1992". B'Tselem, Jerusalem, Israel (1993).

Benvenisti, Eyal. "Legal Dualism: The Absorption of the Occupied Territories into Israel". The West Bank Data Base Project. Westview Press, Boulder, CO (1990).

"Defence (Emergency) Regulations". The Palestine Gazette, No. 1442. Published by the British Government, Palestine (Sept. 27, 1945).

Drury, Richard T. and Winn, Robert C. "Plowshares and Swords: The Economics of Occupation in the West Bank". Published by Beacon Press, Boston, MA (1992).

Jabareen, Hassan; Dalal, Marwan; Rosenberg, Rina & Bashara, Suhab. "Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel". Adalah The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Shfaram, Israel (1998).

Kretzmer, David. "The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel". Series: Westview Special Studies on the Middle East. Westview Press, Boulder, CO (1990).

Kretzmer, David. "The Occupation of Justice: The Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories". SUNY Press, Albany, NY (2002).

Shamir, Ronen. "The Colonies of Law: Colonialism, Zionism, and Law in Early Mandate Palestine".  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (2000).

Shehadeh, Raja. "Occupier's Law: Israel and the West Bank".  Institute for Palestinian Studies, Washington D.C. (1985).

Shehadeh, Raja. "From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel and the Palestinian Territories".  Kluwer Law International, Boston, MA (1997).


Return: to the BEGINNING of this document.

All constructive comments and suggestions and questions are most welcomed. Please send them to [email protected] .

(C) Israel Law Resource Center, February, 2007.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1