Ngo comments on the Initial Israeli State Report on Implementing the un convention on the Rights of the Child

A. The Initial State Report

On February 20, 2001 the State of Israel submitted its Initial State Report¹ to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which was its responsibility under article 44 of the CRC, which describes the reporting obligations of States parties:

1. 
   States Parties undertake to submit to the Committee, through the Secretary General of the United Nations, reports on the measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights recognized herein and on the progress made on the enjoyment of those rights. (…)
   
2. 
   Reports made under the present article shall indicate factors and difficulties, if any, affecting the degree of fulfillment of obligations under the present Convention. Reports shall also contain sufficient information to provide the Committee with a comprehensive understanding of the implementation of the Convention in the country concerned.
   

Law-making vs. Law-enforcement

The government Report emphasizes one of the State of Israel’s strong points, lawmaking. The Initial State Response is an elaborate description of many laws; it mentions so many laws concerning children, it is hard to see the larger picture of the conditions under which children live. ² If we emphasize the legal aspects when examining certain aspects of children’s rights, it gives a distorted picture of reality. A good example is the section of the State Report on Article 33 (State parties shall take appropriate measures…to protect children from illicit use of narcotic drugs… pp.385 -386). First of all, it is striking that in a 400-page report, just one page is dedicated to this rapidly growing problem among Israeli youth.³ The State Report mentions the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1973. Although this is a good law, the situation has changed enormously in the thirty years since it was adopted, so discussing the ordinance has little bearing on the social reality of drug use today, or, for that matter, what the Government is doing to improve conditions. Furthermore there is a worrisome trend in Israeli political culture to legislate “good” laws without providing the funds necessary to implement the laws.⁴

In 1984 the Compulsory Education Law was amended providing free preschool education for children ages three to five. However, this amendment was never implemented because already in 1985 the Knesset accepted a proposal to freeze implementation for 3 years, and this was prolonged after the three years. In 1999, after the Compulsory Education (Implementation in Nursery Schools) Ordinance 1999 was adopted, the law was implemented in some disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, full implementation of the 1984 amendment that the Knesset accepted is not yet in sight. The Rehabilitative Day-care Centers Law 2000, the purpose of which is to ensure proper care, rehabilitation, and educational facilities for children ages one to three with mental retardation and disabilities, has been frozen since March 2001.

Therefore, it is not surprising that while the existence of laws is emphasized in the State Report, the critical matters of implementation is largely avoided.⁵ Of course, the first step towards implementing a Convention is through enacting laws, and DCI – Israel is pleased that the State of Israel has some progressive lawmaking (although we will show in this report that there is a scarcity of laws on certain major issues). The problem is the wide gap between law making and implementation or enforcement. If one looks at the lack of facilities for minors using drugs, the long waiting periods for certain child correction institutions, and the recent budget cuts affecting children, a depressing picture of the Government’s priorities emerges. Another example is the Transportation for Invalid Children Law, 1959 (mentioned in the Initial State Report on page 207), which states among other issues that seatbelts should be installed in transportation vehicles taking children to and from special education facilities. This law is barely enforced, and children's rights organizations have received complaints about children with disabilities who have been injured during their rides.⁶

The great attention in the Initial State Report on legislation is not only an attempt to claim the high ground, since its lawmaking is generally quite progressive, but it also reflects that Israel is a very legalistic society. In our NGO Comments we often refer to the Supreme Court. Access to this highest court of the land is relatively simple, and this option has been used by many NGO’s to remedy injustices.

The tradition of having laws but not implementing and/or enforcing them also extends to recommendations by State Committees. For instance, the recommendations of the Kremnitzer Committee on teaching civic education/ human rights were also not implemented.

The State Report gives the impression that we are dealing with a peaceful, legally progressive country like Luxembourg – not that the country in question is in the Middle East in the midst of a violent conflict.

Children’s Rights in the Occupied Territories

Article 2 of the CRC states that it applies to States Parties for all children “within their jurisdiction.” Our interpretation of ‘jurisdiction’ is under the States Party's effective control, a definition which corresponds to State responsibility.⁷

Thus, in our opinion, the Israeli government should have reported on the implementation of the Convention in the occupied territories, which are under its effective control. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) had the same critique on Israel’s Combined Initial and First Periodic Report concerning the Implementation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. ACRI’s report, submitted to the Human Rights Committee in July 1998, states:

Israel’s report to the Human Rights Committee completely ignores the occupied territories. This in spite of the clear applicability of the ICCPR…Israel’s most egregious violations of the Covenant have taken place in the occupied territories. The conspicuous absence of an account on the extent to which Israel has implemented the substantive obligations of the Covenant in the occupied territories constitutes a serious breach of Israel’s duty to report to this committee.

This is particularly striking because as ACRI states: “Israel holds power over residents of the autonomous areas. These powers are, for all intents and purposes, those of an occupying power.” ⁸

Israel’s Initial State Report on the implementation of the CRC provides no information about Palestinian children and implementation of the Convention in the occupied territories, except for a few paragraphs dealing with East Jerusalem. We empathize with the difficulties faced by the JDC – Brookdale Research Institute and Haifa University Faculty of Law (to which the Report was commissioned) for the lack of data available on Palestinian children. The Government should have supplemented the Report with data on the occupied territories.

Despite this, it is important to note that although there is a clear Israeli responsibility to uphold the CRC in the occupied territories, the Palestinian National Authority (PA) is not exempt from upholding the CRC as well. The PNA has “ratified” the CRC,⁹ and is also acting as if it accepted the responsibility of implementing the CRC (for example, it created a Children’s Secretariat of the Ministry of Development and International Cooperation as a coordinating body). Therefore, giving children military training in some summer camps under responsibility of the Palestinian National Authority can be considered a violation of its responsibility under the CRC.

The status of the PA is different than non-state institutions reporting to the CRC Committee, such as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. The PA has an upgraded status in the UN General Assembly and in many UN institutions; it is received as if it were a State.

However, Israel remains the only State Party and it would be unfair to place complete responsibility on the PA because it is not yet a sovereign and independent state, because the Israeli government neglected the needs of the Palestinian population for many years. In addition, there are now almost daily incursions by the Israeli army into Palestinian areas. This, the closures and sieges, often prevent sick Palestinian children from reaching the hospital in the next town, and the situation has an enormous impact upon implementing rights of Palestinian children.

In March/April 2002 several Palestinian towns and refugee camps saw incursions by the IDF and destruction of the Palestinian Security Organization. On April 8, 2002, Israeli journalist Danny Rubinstein of “Haaretz” wrote: “Government is the entity that has a monopoly on the use of force; this is what is learned in the first lesson in political science courses. In other words, without the security mechanisms- the entire PA is not worth much.”

Rubinstein predicted: “With all due respect to the large quantities of weapons and explosive materials that the IDF has succeeded in seizing this time, several times as much still remains in the hands of the Palestinians. That is, the terror attacks will start again immediately- and everyone will ask: What was the point of this campaign? Therefore, the essence of the whole ‘Protective Shield of March/April 2002’ is the return of Israel to rule the territories.”

He believes that with all of the American and international pressure to withdraw from Area A, the IDF will try to keep in its own hands the security responsibility for all of the territories. In other words, it will try to transform Area A, which will be left without any Palestinian Security mechanisms, into area B, in which the responsibility for security is in Israel’s hands.”

The Israeli Government Report does not discuss child casualties from the recent violence in the occupied territories, however it is discussed in this report under Article 6, the Right to Life. (See also Appendix 4)

We must register our extreme displeasure at the Government Report's exclusion of all issues pertaining to Palestinian children from its discussion, despite the fact that the CRC's Article 2 explicitly places responsibility on the State to report about all children under its jurisdiction.

The government also does not report on a growing number of children of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who collaborated with Israeli authorities and were then relocated with their families to Israel, often in Arab towns against the will of towns’ citizens. These children are often not accepted by their Arab classmates. The Initial State Report ignores them. Their families are often ostracized or driven out of Arab towns in which the government tried to relocate them.¹⁰