Israel’s legal bureaucracy shielding terrorists from deportation – report

The Deputy AG and ministerial legal advisers have reported hamstrung implementation of a law passed nearly three years ago, preventing any of the hundreds of qualified terrorists from being stripped of citizenship and deported.

By World Israel News Staff

Israel’s legal establishment has for nearly three years foiled the implementation of a law providing for the deportation of certain convicted terrorists, thus shielding hundreds of terrorists from loss of citizenship and expulsion, Israeli lawmakers said at a stormy committee meeting last week.

In February 2023, the Knesset passed a bill dubbed the Law on Revocation of Citizenship/Residency for Terror Convicts, authorizing the interior minister to revoke the citizenship or residency permits of convicted terrorists who receive stipends from the Palestinian Authority.

The law, which targeted hundreds of convicted Israeli Arab terrorists who have received payments from the PA, has never been put into effect, Israel’s Channel 14 reported recently.

There are currently some 850 terrorists who could face loss of citizenship and deportation under the law.

In a closed committee hearing last week, MKs discussed the failure to implement the 2023 law, accusing the legal advisory system of deliberately obstructing the law by filing technical objections and using repeated bureaucratic delays.

During the hearing, according to a Channel 14 report published Wednesday morning, it was revealed that the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet intelligence agency have both tried to facilitate the deportation of specific terrorists but were barred from doing so by ministerial legal advisers and the Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon.

“The IDF cannot deal with Israeli citizens,” Limon told lawmakers who questioned why the army was not permitted to transfer information to enable deportations of several terrorists.

MKs accused Limon of a double standard, noting that in other cases the army had been permitted to submit information used against Israeli citizens.

When lawmakers offered to cooperate with the legal advisory system to facilitate the transfer of necessary information, asking what details were needed to enable the Interior Minister to deport terrorists, one of the legal advisers present at the meeting said that the state must show whether the terrorist stipends were paid in dollars or shekels, and whether they were continuing payments or one-time transfers.

The demand stunned MKs, with several openly rejecting the demand.

Under the law, the Interior Minister is only required to demonstrate that a terrorist facing deportation was convicted of a terror-related offense and that the terrorist received money from the Palestinian Authority.

A senior member of the legal advisory system, the Knesset’s chief legal adviser Sagit Afik, backed lawmakers’ objections to the demands for additional information, noting that there are no requirements for such information.

“It’s not written in the law — you cannot go against the law,” she said.

MK Limor Son Har-Melech accused the legal advisers blocking implementation of the law of “endangering Jewish lives.”

“Your conduct is meant to thwart the law — we will pay in blood.”

MK Amit Halevi called the advisers’ actions “criminal behavior.”

“You are not fit to be public servants.”