“International law allows all kinds of struggle and resistance against occupation, apartheid and genocide, including the struggle for human rights. I will continue to try to defend, protect and promote the rights of Palestinians that Israel is violating.”
You are a Palestinian citizen of Israel. You reside in Haifa. Is Haifa where your family is originally from?
That is correct, I am a Palestinian, citizen of Israel. I was born and raised in Nazareth, as was my father, my mother was born in Haifa. The political historical background is that my grand-parents from both sides were all born in Palestine before the establishment of Israel. Despite the 1948 war, after which Israel was established, and the resulting Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe, which, among other, saw 80 percent of Palestinians forced to flee their land to neighbouring countries and beyond, they somehow managed, as did others, to stay and obtain Israeli citizenship. Hence, Palestinians today make up 20 percent of the Israeli population.
You studied law in the United States. Did you consider at that time staying and practising law there?
I obtained a scholarship to study for a master‘s degree in international law, gender and human rights at the American University in Washington D.C. An integral part of the scholarship conditions included my return to Israel to establish a gender/human rights department within Kayan, a feminist Arab organisation, to provide free legal services to Arab women within Israel. The organisation, among other, addressed the patriarchal relations and subordination of Arab women within their communities, within the framework of being a Palestinian minority discriminated against within the state of Israel. The department continues to be fully operational today. I can‘t say that at the time, 20 years ago, I didn‘t have the wish to stay abroad and work there. Retrospectively, returning to my community was the right thing to do.
You are a lawyer focusing on defending the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as the rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Can you explain why Israel does not have a constitution? What are the basic laws it uses in lieu of a constitution and are these a good alternative?
Newly established states normally adopt a constitution that defines them and their political vision. Instead, at the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, discussions about having or not a constitution took place. There was opposition to the drafting of a constitution within the new parliament. To resolve this divergence of opinion, in 1950, the parliament opted for Basic Laws that have constitutional status, which would in the future comprise a formal constitution. At the time, the debate was whether the State of Israel would be defined as a religious Jewish state or a liberal secular state. At some point in these discussions, a major controversy became whether to include the standard principal and the right to equality and dignity. This would entail an obligation to deal in an equal manner on a constitutional level with Palestinians who stayed in the newly established State of Israel after the war, and who, in the eyes of the Jewish state, remain the enemy they fought in 1948. This is the main reason for postponing the writing of a constitution. The State of Israel, 78 years later still has no formal constitution.
Can you tell us about a couple of the most significant violations against Palestinians both in Israel and the Occupied Territories that you have litigated during your 15 years at Adalah (Justice), a prominent Palestinian Human Rights NGO?
It is difficult to talk about one or a few individual cases in an environment of institutional racism and Apartheid. One needs to understand how the different Israeli legal systems work in the State of Israel, the Palestinian territories it occupies and in Gaza, and how Israel is operating on all the land which is under its control, which is based on supremacy of the Jewish people, which is part of the Israeli political vision. It now might also apply it in South Lebanon. The laws passed by the Israeli parliament aim at jeopardising everything linked to Palestinian rights, be it freedom of expression, family reunification, budget allocation, land ownership, acquiring citizenship, right to education and health, as well as political rights. This is the context in which I undertook litigations. I submitted more than 100 petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court representing Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, the de facto boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Today, I continue within my own legal practice, to work cases of political persecution against Palestinians after October 7th, 2023.
Sawsan Zaher with residents from the unrecognised Bedouin village Beer Hadaj, who are faced with eviction and demolition by Israeli authorities, 2024/Photo: Private archive
What did you argue in the litigation against the 2018 Nation-State law on behalf of a broad coalition of Palestinian bodies? What changes has this law brought about for Palestinians?
While still at Adalah, I was part of the legal team that submitted a petition against the 2018 Israel – Nation-State of the Jewish People law, which is a Basic Law. It gave constitutional legitimacy to the principal of Jewish supremacy it even defined the State of Israel as being established in the biblical land of Israel. This would indicate that Israel already since its creation did not want to define its borders as it aimed at eventually expanding them to those biblical borders, namely, to the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, rather than accept the internationally recognized borders. Article 1 states that only the Jewish people have the right to self-determination. Further, it defines Jewish settlements as a national value and encourages their establishment. In the entire law there is no mention of Palestinians at all, who make up 20% of the Israeli citizens. A constitution needs to define the borders of a country and the people within these borders, so that it is clear to whom the constitution applies, whom it should protect and defend. This Basic Law gave constitutional recognition to Jewish supremacy, as the status and rights of Palestinians in it were fully undermined because they weren‘t even mentioned. This in turn enabled an increase of racism among the public against Palestinians. A notable incident was in May 2021 when extremist Jewish settlers entered mixed Jewish-Arab towns and Arab towns in Israel violently attacking Palestinians, some of whom were killed, and their property, backed by the police. This is the translation of what can happen when supremacy is confirmed constitutionally. Forward to the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel, we get genocidal and dehumanizing statements, such as that Palestinians are human animals, that they are all Hamas, turning every Palestinian into an enemy, to justify the on-going genocide in Gaza. The 2018 Basic Law did not directly cause the genocide, but it enabled an atmosphere that allowed dehumanization of all Palestinians to happen, giving genocide legitimacy to proceed.
In 2024, you represented the Palestinian Authority in a petition before the Israeli Supreme Court regarding the withholding by Israel of Palestinian tax revenues in the Occupied Territories. Can you tell us about this case?
The origin of giving Israel the authority to collect Palestinian taxes in the Occupied Territories is found in the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s. These Accords allowed the continuation of Israeli control, occupation and domination. The Paris Protocol, an annex to the Accords, regulates the economic relations between Palestine and Israel, allowing Israel to collect certain taxes and distributing them back to the Palestinian Authority on a regular basis. However, a few years ago, especially under a right-wing government, Israel started withholding these taxes claiming various pretexts, notably that the PA was supporting terrorism against Israel because it is providing social benefits to Palestinians Prisoners in Israeli jails. Note that the Israeli military court system that applies in the West Bank is flawed and unjust, 99 percent of cases end up in convictions, and that the benefits are aimed at family members left without a bread winner. Then in March 2024, the Knesset passed a new law making the PA responsible for any attack by a Palestinian on an Israeli Jew in the West Bank, whether the PA was in any way involved or not, imposing on them punitive compensation for every attack regardless of the damage caused, amounting to millions, payed from Palestinian taxes. The Palestinian Minister of Finance asked me to submit a petition against this law. It was a unique case whereby an occupied government sued an occupier, the case was called „The PA versus the Israeli Knesset”. The Supreme Court rejected our case, it claimed that the PA did not have the authority to question an Israeli law, even though the law directly affected those on whose behalf the petition was submitted. This amounts to theft by one government of another. But it is more than a legal issue. Retaining up to 75 percent of the PA‘s revenues is also a way of preventing it to function and provide services to its people, who end up suffering. Israel is intentionally trying to weaken the PA, thereby precluding the creation of a state of Palestine, in turn setting the way for the annexation of the West Bank.
What are the discriminatory clauses of the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law of March 2026?
This law should be called the death penalty for Palestinians law. It adds to a previous existing law that allows the use of the death penalty for extraordinary crimes which was not applied. The law applies to Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel. It explicitly exceptionalise Jews by clearly stating that the death penalty is applicable only to crimes perpetrated against a Jewish person and Israel. There is no reference about crimes perpetrated against Palestinians, thus a Jew is not affected by this law. International law calls states to abolish the death penalty, some 75% of countries worldwide have done so over the past few decades. While some countries retain the death penalty, Israel is the only country whose law applies to only one ethnic or national group. A simple majority of the judges is sufficient to have the law applied, the execution by hanging, must be carried out within 90 days. It should be noted that a Palestinian on the ground suspected of having committed a crime is shot on the spot, without a trial. Similar to the Nation-State law, this law enables a negative environment. If you go to the beach, to the gym, to an ice-cream parlour, there are people carrying guns everywhere, even civilians who are not serving in the army are acquiring licenses to carry weapons, the society is weaponized, militarized. One doesn‘t really know how an Israeli Jew with a gun may act faced with a Palestinian whose looks he dislikes. These laws contribute to removing basic dignity from and dehumanizing Palestinians, which can lead to extreme actions against them.
Do you have any cooperation with Israeli Human Rights lawyers and NGOs?
I am on the board of B‘Tselem, a major Israeli Human Rights organization, and was asked by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel to speak at the launching of the report „Genocide in Gaza” in 2025. I also represent Israeli human rights and feminist organizations before Israeli authorities including courts. However, the NGO to NGO cooperation has decreased as compared to before October 2023. The Israeli public, whose husbands, sons, brothers, relatives, friends are members of the army, cannot face the reality of them conducting the genocide. It took Israeli NGOs two years to acknowledge the genocide, creating a gap with international Human Rights organisations whose reports acknowledging it early on, contributed to a rift between Palestinians and Israeli NGOs.
In cases of civil war, some states did not pursue criminal charges against those who perpetuated horrific crimes in order not to jeopardise the peace. It was either blanket amnesty, or truth seeking and reconciliation where victims were given the opportunity to publicly speak, while perpetrators had to admit to their crimes to obtain amnesty. What do you think about such approaches?
My view is simple and short: there should be accountability and not impunity for all chain of commands from decision makers who enable the genocide to soldiers who commit it on the ground, as the requirements of international laws demand. If there is no accountability, the crimes will continue as they do to this day in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories and the Occupied Golan Heights. These crimes are expanding to the south of Lebanon, south of Syria, to the illegal war with the US against Iran. International law must be respected as was the case in other regions and countries. We saw that with former Yugoslav leaders accused of genocide, with Rwandan leaders and other African criminals and now even with former President Duterte from the Philippines who is currently brought before the International Criminal Court. The same should apply to Israel.
Do you consider yourself as part of the Palestinian resistance?
International law allows all sorts of struggles and resistance against occupation, apartheid and genocide, among them the human rights struggle. I personally, will continue doing what I have been trained for, which is to try to defend, protect and promote the rights of Palestinians which Israel has been violating, either through speaking out at forums, to the media or by working on legal cases concerning Palestinian rights. Palestinian lawyers inside Israel are living and working in a complex environment. The Israeli system views us as being part of the enemy. We are working based on Israeli laws that are not fair to Palestinians. Israel is not even trying to work on its checks and balances. Its legal system is weakening, while the extreme right politicians are strengthening, destroying leftover norms that existed earlier. They come to hearings at the Supreme Court, they curse, shame and intimidate us, preventing us from making our case. I was more than once almost physically attacked in the hallways of the Court. We see how Israel is pursuing its genocide against Palestinians of whom we are a part. Sometimes we loose hope or focus. How successful we will be remains at this time uncertain. Colleagues and I will continue to try to help redress injustices the way we can, knowing that there is a risk of being harmed in some way at some point.
If justice is rendered through the courts, if Israeli discriminatory laws are annulled, if Israel engages in sincere constructive talks with the Palestinians, considering that neither Palestinians nor Israeli Jews are going to leave historic Palestine, do you envision a day when a sustainable peace will prevail and are your current efforts aimed at building such an outcome?
At this point, listening and watching Israeli officials’ statements and actions in Palestine and the region the vision set in your question seems impossible as Israel is seeking with all illegal means to continue with its genocidal war and crimes against humanity for the sake of expanding its frontiers to the biblical “Great Israel” borders. At this point, all the focus locally and internationally should be to pressure Israel to immediately seize its crimes and be held accountable.
Sawsan Zaher at a Ceasefire Center for Civilian Rights conference on Israel’s restrictions of remedies for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, London, 2023/Photo: Private archive
Ok, you didn’t even answer the question if you envision peace one day, instead you spit disinformation to justify violence against Israel (no word on that). Your hidden goal is distruction and genocide of Israel, and you will defend and justify if it happens. No surprise Israelis see you as threat.