The Israel Policy Center

Law Pardoning Disengagement Protesters Passes Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee

Jerusalem, July 14—The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud)’s draft law to void all indictments against protesters against disengagement. The law now goes to the Knesset plenum for a formal vote, after which it will return to the Committee—or to some other committee—for amendments, if any. Only after it passes the amendment stage in committee and is returned to the plenum for a second and third reading will the bill become law.

The law is based on two rationales: First, that the disengagement was a traumatic event that drove a deep breach within Israeli society, and that a pardon for those who protested against disengagement is a necessary step in healing the breach; second, that the State Prosecution and the police themselves engaged in widespread, officially sanctioned violations of the civil and due process rights of protesters, being more committed to upholding the policy that disengagement represents than to the impartial enforcement of the law.

The State Prosecution argued consistently against the law and its rationale in the Knesset. The passage of the law by the Committee implies a rebuke by the Knesset to the State Prosecution for its practices during disengagement.

Among the supporters of the law were lawmakers who voted for disengagement.

An interesting aspect of the legislative process is that the law was directed to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee rather than the Constitution and Law Committee, where bills regarding the justice system are usually discussed. Supporters of the bill anticipated that the chairman of the Constitution and Law Committee, MK Menahem Ben-Sasson, an avid supporter of the legal establishment, would use his influence to bury the law.