Anatot

For this exercise, we were asked to look up Anatot and also supplied with two websites that Dr. Horowitz found to be useful for our research.  Previously, I had never heard of this area and looked it up to find that Anatot is a small town of less than 1,000 Israelis that live within the West Bank (a primarily Palestinian area).

I first went to the Btselem website and found a website talking about the average age of a minority civilian in the military-justice system in the West Bank.  According to this article, the age has been raised from 16 to 18. This amendment raises the age from 16 to 18 in an effort to protect the Palestinians living in the West Bank.  According to this article, the Israelis are not affected because Israelis are prosecuted under the Israeli Penal Law regardless of their location.  Apparently, this amendment was made in an effort to protect Palestinian teens that have been accused of crimes such as stone throwing. In this respect, the amendment gives Palestinian teens the right to:

1. Notification of Parents: however, this can be an issue because under the amendment, the authorities are required to only make a "reasonable effort" to notify the parents or guardians. However, this legislation fails to mention the requirements for a "reasonable effort."
2. The authorities must inform teens of their rights to consult with an attorney
3. Under this amendment, minors may not be prosecuted after one year of said criminal behavior, except for certain offenses (such as causing death, assault, stone throwing, and throwing a burning object). The previous statute held limitations of two years.
4. This amendment limits the authorities in the way they imprison minors. They are only allowed to be with adults if they are 16 or older and the adults may not have contact with them while the minors are sleeping.

This article interested me because I am considering law school and anything law-related grabs my attention.  I cannot help but notice how incredibly different the law is in Israel/West Bank as compared to the law in the United States. Here, the statue of limitations is much longer and minors are only allowed to be held with adults if the judge decides they should be charged as adults, therefore in the eyes of the law being seen as adult. I feel as though much of this amendment is very general and could therefore lead to trouble for both the authorities and those being detained. In my opinion, this amendment is a very weak attempt to protect the Palestinian teens and I don't feel as though a Palestinian would be very protected if they were arrested. 

Municipal Inequality in Ir-Amim

I found it interesting that the statistic stated that Palestinians account for 33% of the population yet only constitute 8-11% of the funding for Jerusalem. This seems like a pretty obvious miscarriage of fiscal means as they should be receiving at least 30% of the fiscal means provided to the city. 

This article also included facts on the lacking classrooms available to Palestinian children and how the parents are being forced to send their children to pricey private schools and how some children are unable to go to school because their families are unable to pay the pricey fees of private tuition.

These articles were both useful because they gave me a unique glance at the world that Palestinians see and understand.

My questions for Eitan:

1. In your opinion, what is the most obvious misallocation of funds for the Palestinian minorities of Jerusalem? 

2. Do you feel that the Palestinians of Jerusalem are given reasonable schooling for their children and if not, what are some of your ideas to get more classrooms available for the Palestinian students?

3. Do you feel that the new Amendment will help protect Palestinian teens who are arrested by the Israeli authorities? Do you feel that the Amendment addresses all areas of concerns for Palestinian detainees?