Political prisoners in Israel

Human rights in Israel refers to human rights in the State of Israel both legally and in practice. The subject has been evaluated by intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists, often in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the wider Arab–Israeli conflict and Israel internal politics.

Israel is a multiparty parliamentary democracy. It was described in its Declaration of Independence as a "Jewish state" – the legal definition "Jewish and democratic state" was adopted in 1985. In addition to its Jewish majority, Israel is home to religious and ethnic minorities, some of whom report discrimination. In the Palestinian territories, successive Israeli governments have been subject to international criticism from other countries as well as international human rights groups. One of the Basic Laws of Israel, intended to form the basis of a future constitution, Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, is a major tool for safeguarding human rights and civil liberties in the State of Israel.

Israel is seen as being more politically free and democratic than neighboring countries in the Middle East. According to the 2015 US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Israel faces significant human rights problems regarding institutional discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel (many of whom self-identify as Palestinian), Ethiopian Israelis and women, and the treatment of refugees and irregular migrants. Other human rights problems include institutional discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews and intermarried families, and labor rights abuses against foreign workers.

History

The Council of the League of Nations adopted a resolution on 4 September 1931 regarding the general conditions required before the mandate regime could be brought to an end. The new government was to provide an oral or written declaration acknowledging acceptance of an obligation to constitutionally guarantee the equal rights of ethnic and religious minorities. That resolution followed a longstanding precedent of international law in cases where the Great Powers had assisted in the restoration of sovereignty over a territory. The UN resolution on "The Future Government of Palestine" contained both a plan of partition and a Minority Protection Plan.
It placed minority, women's, and religious rights under the protection of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. The plan provided specific guarantees of fundamental human rights. The new states were to supply a declaration, which according to precedent was tantamount to a treaty.
The resolution stated that "the stipulations contained in the declarations are recognized as fundamental laws of State, and no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them." The resolution also required that the constitution of each state embody the rights contained in the Declaration.

During the hearings on Israel's application for membership in the United Nations, Abba Eban said that the rights stipulated in UN resolution 181(II) had been constitutionally embodied as the fundamental law of the state of Israel as required by the resolution. The instruments that he cited during the hearings were the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, and various cables and letters of confirmation addressed to the Secretary General.
Eban's explanations and Israel's undertakings were noted in the text of General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) Admission of Israel to membership in the United Nations, 11 May 1949.

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel proclaimed, on 14 May 1948, that "the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country" was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and "Eretz-Israel and of Israeland to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home." It also declared that the state "will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

Some British academics argue that Israel has not fulfilled its obligation to constitutionally protect minority rights.

In 1950, Israel was admitted to the United Nations in accordance with General Assembly resolution 273 (III) of 11 May 1949. The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the Declaration of Independence is not a constitution and cannot be used to invalidate laws and regulations that contradict it.

Israeli Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, states that fundamental human rights in Israel shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration, but it specifically exempted legislation that was already in force. Israeli legal scholars say that the wording of the law was adopted to avoid the difficulty of giving priority to equality, which was not expressly entrenched. The result is that the principle of equality can be reversed by ordinary legislation, and furthermore will not override statutory or judge-made laws.

The United Nations and its subsidiary organs say that Israel has a binding legal obligation that flows from resolution 181(II) and that the United Nations has a permanent responsibility in the matter.

Status of freedom, political rights and civil liberties in Israel

Israel is committed to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights international treaty in regard to freedom, political rights and civil liberties.

Rights and liberties ratings by NGOs

The 2013 ''Freedom in the World'' annual survey and report by US-based Freedom House, which attempts to measure the degree of democracy and political freedom in every nation, ranked Israel along with Tunisia as the Middle East and North Africa's only free countries.

;Notes:
*Per Freedom House 2009 ratings. For political rights and civil liberties indices, 1 represents the most-free and 7 the least-free rating.
*Per The Economist Intelligence Unit 2010 ratings. Full democracies have an overall score of 10 to 8, flawed democracies have an overall score of 7.9 to 6, hybrid regimes have an overall score of 5.9 to 4, and authoritarian regimes have an overall score from 3.9 to 1. The extent of democracy is higher as the score increases.
*According to the annual Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, the score ranges from 10 (squeaky clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).

Israeli citizens and human rights organizations have criticized the Israeli government for assailing civil society in recent years. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Israel's oldest and largest civil liberties organization, a series of Israeli government efforts in recent years have attacked Israeli civil society. A December 2017 ACRI report presents what it views as examples of persistent Israeli government attack against Israeli democracy, human rights, the right to protest, respect for the underlying value of equality, and the liberties of political, social and ethnic minorities. This trend in Israel has been called "constitutional retrogression" by some legal analysts.

Elections, political parties, and representation

According to the 2015 US Department of State report on Israel, "The law provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections based on universal and equal suffrage, and citizens exercised this ability." Elections held in March 2015 were considered free and fair by observers. A change in the electoral threshold was criticized as limiting representation of small parties, particularly affecting the Arab minority. This resulted in the four Arab-majority parties uniting into one faction, the Joint List, which won 13 seats and became the third-largest faction in the Knesset. Most Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories live under Israeli occupation and are not Israeli citizens. They are not allowed to vote in Israel.

Women faced significant cultural barriers in political parties representing conservative religious movements and, to a lesser degree, the Arab minority. In the 2015 election, the 120-member Knesset had 29 female members and 15 Arab members. Three women were appointed to the cabinet, and for the first time, an Arab Israeli chaired a permanent committee.

Freedom of religion

Although Israel describes itself as a Jewish State, all religious groups have the freedom to practice and maintain communal institutions in Israel. According to the 2009 US Department of State report on Israel and the occupied territories, "The Israeli Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty provides for freedom of worship and the Government generally respected this right in practice." The report added that "Government policy continued to support the generally free practice of religion, although governmental and legal discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism continued" and "Many Jewish citizens objected to exclusive Orthodox control over fundamental aspects of their personal lives." The report stated that approximately 310,000 citizens who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate and therefore cannot be married or divorced, or buried in Jewish state cemeteries within the country.

After gaining control of the West Bank in 1967, Israel guaranteed Muslim access to mosques, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Christian access to churches. Israel has extended protection to religious sites of non-Jewish religions; most famously the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) foiled a Kach party attempt to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and continue to protect this site from attacks by non-Muslims. At times, the observances of holy days by various religions has the potential to cause conflict; thus Israeli police take measures to avoid friction between communities by issuing temporary restrictions on movement and audible worship. The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law protects all holy sites, but the government has implemented regulations only for 137 Jewish sites, leaving many Muslim and Christian sites neglected, inaccessible, or threatened by property development.

The city of Jerusalem has given financial support to Muslim religious activities as well has giving them facilities for their use. Israel does not give funding to some religious communities including Protestants.

The Baháʼí Faith (in 1960) maintains the seat of their governing bodies, the Universal House of Justice, in Haifa. Buddhism is also active as a religion in Israel.

According to a 2009 report from the US Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Israel falls short of being a tolerant or pluralistic society. According to the report, Israel discriminates against Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Reform Jews, Christians, women and Bedouins. All 137 official holy sites recognized by Israel are Jewish, ignoring and neglecting Christian and Muslim sites.

The Pew Research Center has published studies of social hostilities by country. The Social Hostilities Index (SHI) measures acts of religious hostility by individuals, organizations and social groups. "This includes mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons, and other religion-related intimidation or abuse."Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion
The Pew Forum, 20 September 2012 In 2007, Israel was one of 10 countries with a score over 7.1 on a scale of 10; in 2010, Israel and the Palestinian territories were two of the 15 areas with the highest SHI scores.

Marriage and divorce laws

A couple wishing to marry can do so only through a religious ceremony, if Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or other. Non-religious couples, since 2014, can have a kind of civil marriage in Israel, and get through New Family Organization a Relationships Card that changes their status to a couple, and entitles them with all of the rights that come from it. Common-law marriage gives couples the same rights as married couples enjoy. Israeli citizens may also travel abroad for a civil marriage, which is then binding under Israeli law.

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2003, the Knesset made a temporary amendment to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law which prohibited Palestinians married to Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship or residency. Critics argue that the law is racist because it is targeted at Israeli Arabs who are far more likely to have Palestinian spouses than other Israelis; defenders say the law is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and preserving the Jewish character of Israel. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination unanimously approved a resolution saying that the Israeli law violated an international human rights treaty against racism. The Israeli Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Yaakov Levy, said the resolution was "highly politicized", citing the committee's failure to grant Israel's request to present evidence of the "legislation's compliance with existing international law and practice", examples of "numerous concrete instances n which thegranting of a legal status to Palestinian spouses of Israeli residents asabused by Palestinian residents of the territories for suicide terrorism", and also ignoring the fact that at the time of the UN resolution the matter was under review by the Israeli High Court of Justice.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a petition to have the law struck down but it was upheld by a High Court decision in 2006. In formulating the law, the government cited, "information presented by the security forces, which said that the terrorist organizations try to enlist Palestinians who have already received or will receive Israeli documentation and that the security services have a hard time distinguishing between Palestinians who might help the terrorists and those who will not".
In the Israeli Supreme Court decision on this matter, Deputy Chief Justice Mishael Cheshin argued that, "Israeli citizens o notenjoy a constitutional right to bring a foreign national into Israel... and it is the right – moreover, it is the duty – of the state, of any state, to protect its residents from those wishing to harm them. And it derives from this that the state is entitled to prevent the immigration of enemy nationals into it – even if they are spouses of Israeli citizens – while it is waging an armed conflict with that same enemy".

In 2009, the US Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor criticized the lack of civil marriage and divorce in Israel for immigrants who are not considered Jewish under rabbinical law.

Human rights activists have criticised Israel's stay of exit order, saying it unfairly targets divorced men by preventing them from leaving the country indefinitely until they settle the full child support arrears of their children until age 18. While this could easily amount to obligations in the millions of US dollars, even a US$100 debt can trigger a stay of exit. The men are required to pay 100% or more of their income, and are jailed for 21 days each time they miss a monthly payment. In 2021, it was reported that an Australian man who was divorced from his Israeli wife was detained from leaving the country in 2013, with the stay of exit being in force until 31 December 9999, or until he paid $3 million in child support arrears. Marianne Azizi, British journalist and head of Coalition of the Children and Families in Israel (CCF), estimated that hundreds more Australians were trapped in the country as a result of the stay of exit. She had been informed by British Embassy officials in Tel Aviv that 100 British nationals per month had been reaching out to them for help in getting out of the country.

In March 2019, Azizi testified in front of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva about the human rights violations she maintained were a direct result of the over-the-top child support rules in Israel, saying that "... the lives of over 2,000 fathers in suicide is a high price". She said that Israelis do not report human rights violations for fear of "consequences", such as some activists having had their children taken away from them. Attorney Mickey Givati, who was authorised by the British Embassy to help foreigners exit Israel, testified that tracking devices had been placed inside his vehicle, home and phone, and that his children were illegally placed in a shelter.

Judiciary system and criminal justice

Israeli law provides for the right to a fair trial and an independent judiciary. The 2005 US Department of State report on Israel notes that the courts sometimes ruled against the executive branch, including in some security cases. Human Rights Groups believe these requirements are generally respected. The system is adversarial and cases are decided by professional judges. Indigent defendants receive mandatory representation. Some areas of the country fall under the separate judicial jurisdiction of military courts. These courts are believed to be in alignment with Israel's other criminal courts on matters pertaining to civilians. Convictions in these courts cannot be based on confession alone.

US Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan said, in 1987, that despite the difficulties in safeguarding civil liberties during times of security crises, "it may well be Israel, not the United States, that provides the best hope for building a jurisprudence that can protect civil liberties against the demands of national security."

Capital punishment

Israeli law currently allows for the death penalty for serious crimes committed during wartime, but it has been abolished during peacetime. Current crimes during wartime include genocide, crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The only person to have ever been executed after conviction in an Israeli civilian court was the Nazi war-criminal Adolf Eichmann