Coronavirus & Israel’s Supreme Court:
Disclosing Structural Failures & Inequities in Israeli Policies

Wednesday, April 29
11am-12pm, EDT
RSVP to the webinar on Zoom

Featuring:

Hassan Jabareen (Adalah)
Jessica Montell (Hamoked)
Michael Sfard (Israeli Human Rights Lawyer)

In conversation with:

Lara Friedman (Foundation for Middle East Peace)

The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) invites you to join a webinar looking at the Coronavirus crisis and Israel’s Supreme Court. The cases currently being brought/argued before the High Court collectively highlight many of the deep structural inequities, bureaucratic failures, and politicized nature of Israeli policies on both sides of the Green Line. This webinar will discuss these cases and what they disclose about Israeli policies, as well as delving into the broader issues and challenges related to human rights defenders and civil rights advocates seeking recourse and remedies at the Israel Supreme Court.

Panelist Biographies

Hassan Jabareen is the founder of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, serving as Adalah’s general and legal director since its establishment in 1996. He has litigated scores of landmark constitutional law cases regarding Palestinian citizens of Israel, including the Palestinian leadership, and international humanitarian law cases concerning Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territory before the Israeli Supreme Court. Also, since 1998, he has been an adjunct lecturer for a course that he initiated on the legal status of the Arab minority in Israel and other law courses in the Faculties of Law at Tel Aviv, Hebrew, and Haifa Universities. He has received awards for outstanding public interest lawyering and top human rights law prizes. @AdalahEnglish

Jessica Montell is executive director of HaMoked, the Center for Defence of the Individual.  She has been a leading figure in Israeli civil society for two decades. For thirteen years she headed the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. She left B’Tselem in 2014 and was founding director of SISO: Save Israel, Stop the Occupation, an Israel-Diaspora partnership to build collective action for the 50th year of the Israeli occupation. In 2011, Ms. Montell was selected by Ha’aretz as one of “the year’s 10 most influential Anglo immigrants.” In 2013, the UK-based Action on Armed Violence selected Jessica as one of the 100 most influential people working to make the world a safer place. Ms. Montell is a frequent speaker and commentator on human rights, international humanitarian law and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. @JessicaMontell

Michael Sfard is one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers. A former conscientious objector, he received the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award and an Open Society Fellowship. His writing on human rights has appeared in The New York Times, Haaretz, The Independent, and Foreign Policy. In 2018, Sfard published his acclaimed book, The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights. He lives in Tel Aviv. @sfardm

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) and a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. Lara is a Contributing Writer at Jewish Currents and a non-resident fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). @LaraFriedmanDC