Arab takes seat on Israel's Supreme Court

[Gentle Giant]

A step in the right direction, I should think....

Arab takes seat, faces key test on Israel's high court
Verdict looms on issue of Palestinians' rights
By Dan Ephron, Globe Correspondent *|* May 17, 2004

JERUSALEM -- One of the first rulings Justice Salim Jubran will make as a permanent member of Israel's Supreme Court in a few months could become the most scrutinized decision of his career.

The 57-year-old Jubran will decide with other judges whether to strike down a 10-month-old law that says Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who marry Israeli-Arabs are not entitled to live in Israel. The case, which was brought to the court by an Israeli human rights group, is considered thorny for all 13 justices on the panel.

For Jubran, who this month became the first Arab to be appointed to a permanent seat on the Supreme Court, it poses particular complexities.

In a country frequently torn between its designation as a Jewish homeland and its commitment to extending equal rights to all its citizens -- Arabs and Jews -- Jubran is both an example of and an exception to the way Israel treats its minorities.

He has now joined the judicial body most often called on to correct injustices aimed at his own Israeli-Arab community.

"He's a very good judge. He is entitled to this position regardless of his ethnic belonging," says Hassan Jabareen, an Israeli-Arab lawyer who heads the human rights group Adalah. "But it's not going to be easy for him to be an Arab Supreme Court justice in Israel."

Just making it to the Supreme Court, which Israelis regard more highly than any other public institution, was hard enough. In legal circles here, his appointment is likened to the naming of Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American justice on the US Supreme Court in 1967.

But while Marshall took his seat on the bench after spending much of his career fighting for the rights of blacks and other minorities, Jubran is known mainly for his tough decisions against drug dealers and sex offenders.

He has not been an activist for the rights of Israeli-Arabs, who make up 18 percent of the population and frequently complain of being treated as second-class citizens.

A Christian from the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Haifa, Jubran studied law at the prestigious Hebrew University law school in the late 1960s, when few Israeli-Arabs could make the grade.

Today, law is one of the most common fields of study for Israeli-Arabs.

Jubran practiced criminal law for 12 years and got his first appointment to the bench in Haifa at the remarkably young age of 35. After 21 years in the lower courts, he received a temporary position on the Supreme Court last year.

That appointment did not assure him a permanent seat. The one other Arab judge who made it that far was sent back in 1999 to the district court after just three months. Among Israeli-Arabs, that demotion was viewed as racially motivated. Supreme Court justices are chosen by a committee of politicians, lawyers, and judges.

Itzhak Zamir, a retired Supreme Court justice who lobbied for an Arab to be named to the bench, said one reason for the long delay is the social upheaval that befell Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948.

"You have to realize that most Arab leaders and professionals in the community fled during the war and didn't return," Zamir said in an interview. "It took decades for a new generation of scholars to emerge and gain experience."

But Jabareen said that he believes the real explanation has more to do with discrimination.

Jabareen said Israeli-Arabs are grossly underrepresented in many professions, including academia and public service. The first Arab Cabinet minister was appointed just three years ago. And Jabareen pointed to successive studies that conclude Israeli-Arab communities receive much less public funding than Jewish towns and cities.

To correct some of the perceived injustices, Jabareen and other Israeli-Arab lawyers have frequently used a feature in Israel's Supreme Court that allows citizens to challenge government decisions or policies without first petitioning the lower courts.

When Israel's parliament passed a law in July barring Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from living with their spouses in Israel, Adalah asked the Supreme Court to declare the law illegal.

Israel says the law is meant to prevent Palestinian militants from gaining access to Israel by marrying Israeli-Arabs. But Adalah wrote in its brief that Israel could not single out Palestinians without engaging in blatant discrimination.

The case is now being considered by a panel of Supreme Court justices, including Jubran.

Jabareen said Jubran's decision will be more significant than that of any other judge.

"If he upholds a law that discriminates against his own kind, against himself really, I think the message will be that having an Arab on the Supreme Court doesn't make much of a difference," Jabareen said.

"And if he votes to overturn the law, I think he will be looked on suspiciously by many lawyers and legal scholars in Israel," he said.

"Either way, I don't envy him."*