Jonathan Cook: the Blog from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net

Kafka at Israeli airports and courts

A wonderful example of the Kafkaesque legal system in Israel.

The Nazareth district court (which is actually in the Jewish city of Upper Nazareth, not Nazareth) found against three Palestinian citizens of Israel who brought a class-action suit against the Israeli airport authorities and national airlines for routine discrimination in carrying out invasive and humiliating security checks of non-Jewish passengers.

The judge rejected the case on two grounds.

One was that the suit could not prove that every Palestinian citizen faced discrimination, even if such discrimination is well-documented. Or as Judge Nehama Zimring Munitz stated: “we should not rely, as the plaintiffs have requested, on newspaper articles as a basis for claims of discrimination.”

And the other was that the court had no other basis for judging the nature and extent of such discrimination, given that the airport’s security protocols are secret.

That’s what known in the trade as Catch-22.

The judge ruled instead that every Palestinian citizen who faced discrimination should file their own separate legal case against the authorities – all tens of thousands of them. Meanwhile, she awarded $20,000 costs against the three plaintiffs.

www.haaretz.com/news/national/court-rejects-israeli-arab-class-action-suit-over-airport-discrimination-1.486044

If you appreciate my articles, please consider hitting a donate button (left for Paypal, right for GoCardless):
Supporting Jonathan Cook Supporting Jonathan Cook
Back to Top

You can also read my articles HERE. To join discussions about my work, please visit my Facebook or Twitter page.