Prevention of Terror Ordinance
Encyclopedia
Prevention of Terror Ordinance is the statute used by the prosecution in most trials in Israel
against suspects arrested by the Shabak, Israeli Police, Magav/Border Guard, or the Israel Defense Forces
for security offenses. The PTO has been used in both military and civil courts, though they are applied in different ways. Generally, Arab residents of the West Bank
or Gaza
, being as they are subject to the Military Administration, are tried in military courts due to the lack of citizenship of a sovereign state. (The Palestinian National Authority
[PNA] has only an administrative function, as the responsibility of Palestinian representation in the international community is still controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization
[PLO]). The PTO is also used very rarely in the case of Israeli residents who committed terror attacks, such as members of the 1980s Jewish Underground
, as well as Arab Israelis who collaborate with Palestinian terror groups.
Since the prosecution of fedayoun leaders in the 1950s, many landmarks have been made in the use of this controversial statute. Kozo Okamoto
, a member of the Japanese Red Army
who committed the 1971 Lod Airport machine gun attack on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was given a life sentence and was released in 1997, long after the JRA itself had faded from the spotlight in Japan.
Convictions under the law increased exponentially throughout the 1970s, though most of the defendants were low-ranking PLO insurgents caught by patrols.
Domestic and Foreign Terror
The Gush Emunim Underground
became the first Israeli organization to be charged with offences under the act. In the mid-1980s they were convicted for a series of car bombing attempts against Arab mayors in the West Bank
, all of whom survived but were severely mamed. The Makhteret legal procedures coincided with the detention of many members of the Hizbullah organization, a Lebanese Islamist group that committed numerous attacks against IDF forces in southern Lebanon as well as civilians within Israel. Though it is unverified whether any Hizbullah members were convicted in civil courts, senior members of the group, including Mustafa Dirani
and Sheikh Hassan Obeid, were convicted of security offenses in military courts due to the group's policy of kidnapping Israeli soldiers to ransom for captured comrades. Machteret legal teams used the Israeli policy of releasing senior Hizbullah officials and other terror convicts as justification for their own release, a process in the end succeeded, as by 1992 none of the group's suspects were still behind bars.
In the 1990s, as the Shabak began to warn against the proliferation of right-wing, messianic Jewish groups that rejected the authority of the Israeli government as heretical, the Attorney General
's Office and Ministry of Justice considered using the law to prevent the growth of violent tendencies within Israel's Jewish population. In 1994, when Kach
activist Baruch Goldstein
committed the suicidal Hebron
massacre, the Rabin
government cracked down on the group's activities, as the Shabak increased its surveillance of activists, and leading figures such as Noam Federman
, Baruch Marzel
, and Itamar Ben-Gvir were put under house arrest. Though the legality of these measures has always been in question, the results have passed the test of time, as the effectiveness of Jewish terror groups in carrying out coordinated or group operations has been minimal, except for "lone wolf" attacks such as the 2005 Shfaram massacre.
in 1987 created the first situation where many residents of the West Bank and Gaza were brought to trial under the law. This situation was even more controversial than the 1970s trials of PLO terror suspects, because there were even defendants convicted of offences such as stone throwing.
Since start of the Second Intifada in 2001, many famous defendants have found themselves on the dock in Israeli courts. By far the most famous of them, and maybe in the history of the law itself, is Tanzim
and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
founder Marwan Barghouti
was convicted in 2004 on five counts of murder and three of attempted murder, in addition to membership in a terror organization in a civil court. The difficulty of the trial of Barghouti, as with many senior terror suspects as opposed to their "foot soldiers", is in proving that they have knowledge or acquiescence to the offences connected to them. Barghouti was also accused of over twenty other murder charges that in the end were dropped for lack of proof. Barghouti's trial, though deemed fair, has sparked an international campaign to free him, as the Palestinian National Authority challenges Israeli jurisdiction over him. The trial of Ahmad Saadat, chairman of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will probably follow a similar course, though as opposed to Barghouti's his is expected to take place in a civil court.
Israeli Arabs have also been charged under the act numerous times since 2001, including the murderers of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi "Gandhi", as well as those who have been caught and charged for conspiracy to assassinate former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph in April 2005, most of whom in both cases are residents of East Jerusalem and therefore hold Israeli citizenship.
Israeli Knesset Member Azmi Bishara
, the leader of the National Democratic Assembly, was charged in 2001 under the act as well as the Emergency Regulations (Foreign Travel) act for his visits to Syria, a state that is defined as being at war with Israel. He also made two speeches that same year justifying Palestinian terror attacks against Israel. In February 2006 Bishara was cleared of all charges. In an even more bizarre case, in 2004 peace activist Tali Fahima
was charged with assistance to a terror organization for her role in complicating IDF operations aimed toward locating and arresting Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades Jenin leader Zakaria Zubeidi
. Though it couldn't be proven that Fahima had knowledge of attacks that Palestinian terror groups had planned, the fact that she served as a human shield for Zubeidi and his staff resulted in her conviction.
As of June 28, 2006 the IDF has arrested over ten members of the Palestine Legislative Council who are members of the Hamas
or are wanted for security offenses as part of Operation Summer Rains, and will be charged as members of a terror organization. Previously there fourteen members of the PLC serving time in Israel jails for security offenses. Among those who are most eligible for prosecution are Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar
, a long-time member of the Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
, as well as four members of the assembly representing Hamas in East Jerusalem, including Mohammed Abu-Tir, who have lately had their residency revoked. Unlike the cases listed above, most of those arrested will have a difficult time avoiding conviction in an Israeli court, as many of them planned or assisted in terror attacks when they were members of Izzedine al-Qassam.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
against suspects arrested by the Shabak, Israeli Police, Magav/Border Guard, or the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
for security offenses. The PTO has been used in both military and civil courts, though they are applied in different ways. Generally, Arab residents of the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
or Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
, being as they are subject to the Military Administration, are tried in military courts due to the lack of citizenship of a sovereign state. (The Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
[PNA] has only an administrative function, as the responsibility of Palestinian representation in the international community is still controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
[PLO]). The PTO is also used very rarely in the case of Israeli residents who committed terror attacks, such as members of the 1980s Jewish Underground
Gush Emunim Underground
The Jewish Underground was a militant organization formed by prominent members of the Israeli political movement Gush Emunim that existed from 1979 to 1984. The group's highest profile plot was to destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem....
, as well as Arab Israelis who collaborate with Palestinian terror groups.
The Ordinance
Composed in 1948, the Ordinance was brought to bear by the rapid formation of the fedayoun, marauding gangs of Palestinian refugees supported by Israel, Jordan, or Syria that committed acts of terror against civilians. In order to differentiate these suspects from criminal ones, the state decided to define membership in terror groups, and offenses committed in their name, as more punitive than their criminal counterparts.Famous Defendants
Early YearsSince the prosecution of fedayoun leaders in the 1950s, many landmarks have been made in the use of this controversial statute. Kozo Okamoto
Kozo Okamoto
was a 24-year-old botany student from a respectable middle-class family when he was recruited to the Japanese Red Army . He was later detained in Lebanon. During his stay in Lebanon, Okamoto converted to Islam in what was seen as an attempt to avoid being returned to Japan...
, a member of the Japanese Red Army
Japanese Red Army
The was a Communist terrorist group founded by Fusako Shigenobu early in 1971 in Lebanon. It sometimes called itself Arab-JRA after the Lod airport massacre...
who committed the 1971 Lod Airport machine gun attack on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was given a life sentence and was released in 1997, long after the JRA itself had faded from the spotlight in Japan.
Convictions under the law increased exponentially throughout the 1970s, though most of the defendants were low-ranking PLO insurgents caught by patrols.
Domestic and Foreign Terror
The Gush Emunim Underground
Gush Emunim Underground
The Jewish Underground was a militant organization formed by prominent members of the Israeli political movement Gush Emunim that existed from 1979 to 1984. The group's highest profile plot was to destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem....
became the first Israeli organization to be charged with offences under the act. In the mid-1980s they were convicted for a series of car bombing attempts against Arab mayors in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
, all of whom survived but were severely mamed. The Makhteret legal procedures coincided with the detention of many members of the Hizbullah organization, a Lebanese Islamist group that committed numerous attacks against IDF forces in southern Lebanon as well as civilians within Israel. Though it is unverified whether any Hizbullah members were convicted in civil courts, senior members of the group, including Mustafa Dirani
Mustafa Dirani
Mustafa Dirani was a member and held position of "the head of security" of the Amal movement, a Shi'a militia in Lebanon associated with Syria. In 1987 he started contacts with pro-Iran sources, and eventually he created contacts between them and the rest of the leadership of Amal...
and Sheikh Hassan Obeid, were convicted of security offenses in military courts due to the group's policy of kidnapping Israeli soldiers to ransom for captured comrades. Machteret legal teams used the Israeli policy of releasing senior Hizbullah officials and other terror convicts as justification for their own release, a process in the end succeeded, as by 1992 none of the group's suspects were still behind bars.
In the 1990s, as the Shabak began to warn against the proliferation of right-wing, messianic Jewish groups that rejected the authority of the Israeli government as heretical, the Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
's Office and Ministry of Justice considered using the law to prevent the growth of violent tendencies within Israel's Jewish population. In 1994, when Kach
Kach
Kach is town and union council of the Ziarat District in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. It is located at 30°26'2N 67°19'27E and has an altitude of 2020m ....
activist Baruch Goldstein
Baruch Goldstein
Baruch Kopel Goldstein was an American-born Jewish Israeli physician and mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125....
committed the suicidal Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
massacre, the Rabin
Rabin
Rąbiń is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Krzywiń, within Kościan County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It lies approximately north of Krzywiń, east of Kościan, and south of the regional capital Poznań....
government cracked down on the group's activities, as the Shabak increased its surveillance of activists, and leading figures such as Noam Federman
Noam Federman
Noam Federman is a religious right-wing Israeli Jew in Hebron and a former leader of the Kach Party which he has been involved with since he was 14. He has been held in administrative detention several times. Federman hosts a weekly Internet program called "Federman Without Censor"...
, Baruch Marzel
Baruch Marzel
Baruch Meir Marzel is an Israeli politician. Marzel, an American-born Orthodox Jew, lives in the Jewish community of Hebron in Tel Rumeida with his wife and nine children. He is the leader of the Religious Zionism-orientated Jewish National Front party...
, and Itamar Ben-Gvir were put under house arrest. Though the legality of these measures has always been in question, the results have passed the test of time, as the effectiveness of Jewish terror groups in carrying out coordinated or group operations has been minimal, except for "lone wolf" attacks such as the 2005 Shfaram massacre.
Modern Enforcement
The eruption of the First IntifadaFirst Intifada
The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
in 1987 created the first situation where many residents of the West Bank and Gaza were brought to trial under the law. This situation was even more controversial than the 1970s trials of PLO terror suspects, because there were even defendants convicted of offences such as stone throwing.
Since start of the Second Intifada in 2001, many famous defendants have found themselves on the dock in Israeli courts. By far the most famous of them, and maybe in the history of the law itself, is Tanzim
Tanzim
Tanzim is a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement.-Overview:The Tanzim militia, founded in 1995 to counter Palestinian Islamism, is widely considered to be an armed offshoot of Fatah with its own leadership structure...
and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is a coalition of Palestinian nationalist militias in the West Bank. The group's name refers to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem...
founder Marwan Barghouti
Marwan Barghouti
Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti is a Palestinian political figure. He is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. Barghouti at one time supported the peace process, but later became disillusioned, and after 2000 went on to become the main figure behind the Al-Aqsa Intifada in the...
was convicted in 2004 on five counts of murder and three of attempted murder, in addition to membership in a terror organization in a civil court. The difficulty of the trial of Barghouti, as with many senior terror suspects as opposed to their "foot soldiers", is in proving that they have knowledge or acquiescence to the offences connected to them. Barghouti was also accused of over twenty other murder charges that in the end were dropped for lack of proof. Barghouti's trial, though deemed fair, has sparked an international campaign to free him, as the Palestinian National Authority challenges Israeli jurisdiction over him. The trial of Ahmad Saadat, chairman of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will probably follow a similar course, though as opposed to Barghouti's his is expected to take place in a civil court.
Israeli Arabs have also been charged under the act numerous times since 2001, including the murderers of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi "Gandhi", as well as those who have been caught and charged for conspiracy to assassinate former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph in April 2005, most of whom in both cases are residents of East Jerusalem and therefore hold Israeli citizenship.
Activities Included
In many trials throughout the history of the prosecution of the law, much of the case of the prosecution was based on suspects' membership in the organization and not necessarily on violent or other criminal offences. For example, Fouad Shoubaki (arrested in March 2006), a businessman who funded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and helped organize the Karine A weapons shipment will probably be tried for his financial support for terror activities.Israeli Knesset Member Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara , a former member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is a Palestinian intellectual, academic, politician, and writer.In 2007, Bishara fled Israel and resigned from the Knesset after being questioned by police on suspicion of aiding and passing information to the enemy during...
, the leader of the National Democratic Assembly, was charged in 2001 under the act as well as the Emergency Regulations (Foreign Travel) act for his visits to Syria, a state that is defined as being at war with Israel. He also made two speeches that same year justifying Palestinian terror attacks against Israel. In February 2006 Bishara was cleared of all charges. In an even more bizarre case, in 2004 peace activist Tali Fahima
Tali Fahima
Tali Fahima is an Israeli woman, who was convicted for her contacts with Zakaria Zubeidi, Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. She describes her nationality as Palestinian....
was charged with assistance to a terror organization for her role in complicating IDF operations aimed toward locating and arresting Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades Jenin leader Zakaria Zubeidi
Zakaria Zubeidi
Zakaria Muhammad 'Abdelrahman Zubeidi is a former Palestinian militant leader, who recently ended his years on Israel's most-wanted list by handing over his guns to the Palestinian National Authority and accepting Israeli amnesty. He had been the Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and...
. Though it couldn't be proven that Fahima had knowledge of attacks that Palestinian terror groups had planned, the fact that she served as a human shield for Zubeidi and his staff resulted in her conviction.
As of June 28, 2006 the IDF has arrested over ten members of the Palestine Legislative Council who are members of the Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
or are wanted for security offenses as part of Operation Summer Rains, and will be charged as members of a terror organization. Previously there fourteen members of the PLC serving time in Israel jails for security offenses. Among those who are most eligible for prosecution are Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar
Mahmoud al-Zahar
Mahmoud al-Zahar is a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip. Since the formation of the Hamas/"Change and Reform" government in the Palestinian National Authority in March 2006, al-Zahar has served as foreign minister in the government of prime minister Ismail...
, a long-time member of the Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist fundamentalist socio-political organisation Hamas. Created in 1992, under the direction of Yahya Ayyash, the primary objective of the group was to build a coherent military organisation to support the goals of...
, as well as four members of the assembly representing Hamas in East Jerusalem, including Mohammed Abu-Tir, who have lately had their residency revoked. Unlike the cases listed above, most of those arrested will have a difficult time avoiding conviction in an Israeli court, as many of them planned or assisted in terror attacks when they were members of Izzedine al-Qassam.