Press Releases
BADIL publishes Working Paper No. 19 on Suppression of Resistance, as part of its ten-paper series on Forced Population Transfer: The Case of Palestine.
Despite not being commonly mentioned among the Israeli policies of forced population transfer, the suppression of resistance directly affects Palestinians’ lives, creating coercive environment, and consequently triggering the displacement of Palestinians across Mandate Palestine.
Some of the individual policies of suppression involve the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes; actions that can amount to the crime of forcible transfer and/or deportation when applied to Palestinians living in the oPt. In other cases, these suppressive policies may not directly displace Palestinians, but certainly create an atmosphere of coerciveness, duress, and psychological oppression that leaves those subjected to the policies with no option but to leave. BADIL’s research and analysis demonstrates that the suppression of resistance as a means to further displace Palestinians is of significant importance, not only for the aforementioned consequences, but because it allows Israel to continue implementing other policies of forcible transfer which in turn constitute the manifestations of the root causes of the ongoing conflict, namely Israel’s regime of colonization, apartheid and forced displacement.
Following the legal analysis which is established through the frameworks of international humanitarian, human rights, and customary law for the suppression of resistance, this working paper is divided into three chapters which aim to cover the predominant forms of Israeli suppression: punitive retaliation, imprisonment, and the suppression of Palestinian civil society. While addressing a number of laws, practices, and methods implemented by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people individually and collectively, this paper should not be considered comprehensive. It highlights many of the forms of suppression to provide a broad understanding of these practices as mechanisms of forcible transfer and/or displacement. They are exemplified with policies such as; collective punishment, deportation of prisoners, the denial of identity and culture, and others. The methods and practices detailed in the paper are by no means exhaustive.
The paper concludes by addressing the consequences of Israeli suppression as triggers to direct and indirect forced population transfer of Palestinian people. These triggers represent human rights violations, with certain cases constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Paper emphasizes the need to document all instances of suppression and highlights the use of this policy as means of forced population transfer. As long as the international community continues to afford Israel the impunity with which to carry out the systemic suppression of Palestinians, Palestinians will continue to be unprotected and subject to illegal policies of colonization and apartheid, or forced to leave their homes.
Download the PDF version of this Working Paper
To get a hard copy of the Suppression of Resistance Working Paper, please contact us at: [email protected]
About the series:
This Series of Working Papers on forced population transfer is intended to encourage debate, and to stimulate discussion and critical comment. Together, and drawing upon desk and field-based research, these papers will identify and explore the key components of Israel’s policies and mechanisms of forcible transfer of the Palestinian population. Specifically, BADIL has identified these components are as follows:
- Denial of Residency
- Discriminatory Zoning and Planning
- Installment of a Permit Regime
- Suppression of Resistance
- Land Confiscation and Denial of Use
- Denial of Access to Natural Resources and Services
- Institutionalized Discrimination and Segregation
- Denial of Reparation (return/repatriation, property restitution, compensation and non-repetition of violations)
- Non-state actions (with the implicit consent of the Israeli state)