2. Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.
3. The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant.
4. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country."
Besides legitimate national security and military necessity, restricting free movement must meet another requirement - proportionality. Under Israeli administrative law as well, the state must prove the legitimate necessity of restrictions, that security can't be achieved by less harmful means, and that the end result justifies the cost under international law. The UN Human Rights Committee states that the principle of proportionality requires that movement restrictions be incorporated in clear and justifiable legislation. Failure to do so violates international law under which Israel is accountable.
Israel claims justification for its occupation policies - that they're vital to secure its West Bank settlers as well as Israelis traveling on the Territory's roads. Clearly, the threat is real, but unasked is why. It's because of Israel's longstanding belligerency forcing Palestinians to respond in self-defense and at times take Israeli lives. There's no secret how to stop it, but Israel abjures - stop attacking Palestinians so they stop fighting back. Long ago it was that way before Palestine became Israel. Arabs and Jews lived peacefully at a time the population imbalance heavily favored Palestinians and the great Jewish immigration wave hadn't begun.
Today, it's another matter, Israel manufactures its own security problem, then unjustifiably claims the right to react, and in the process, inflict great harm on a mostly-civilian population. Its actions are unrelated to security, are entirely political and stem from its annexation aims - to seize the West Bank's most valued areas, remove the Palestinian population, and resettle them in isolated cantons unconnected to the others except by a crazy quilt patchwork of obstructive checkpoints, barriers, and hard to traverse road network.
Israel acts illegally on occupied lands, and its draconian restrictions follow as a result. They're less for security and mainly to let settlers (on stolen land) move around freely. They're heavily protected, isolated from their Arab neighbors, able to travel on for-Jews only roads, live in Jewish-only communities, and get all the conveniences of a modern state that denies them to non-Jews in a country claiming to be a model democracy.
All West Bank settlements are illegal under international law. So is the main road network forbidden to Palestinians that's built on annexed land. Israel's justifications are unfounded. Security is a non-starter. So is the claim that it's to protect against terrorist attacks that are, in fact, self-defense measures in an unfair fight. Palestinians are matched against the world's fourth most powerful military that flexes its muscles by attacking civilians and claims its occupation is just. International law says otherwise, but Israel ignores it.
It also acts disproportionately. It fails the test by all measures:
-- there's no rational connection between the harm restrictions cause and Israel's declared security objective; independent security and human rights experts concur on this; their view is that there's a converse relationship between restrictions imposed and security desired; the greater the former, the less of the latter;
-- a second failure is the lack of an alternative that causes less harm to achieve a security goal; in some instances, Israel admitted it hasn't used other methods that would have caused less harm; the Separation Wall is the clearest example of a measure causing great harm with little payback except for confiscated land; after that, the Wall is purely punitive and the Palestinian response justifiable anger;
-- a third failure is the lack of a proper relationship between the harm caused and security benefit gained; whatever reasons Israel claims for its policy, it must still justify that it acted in proper proportion to the benefit achieved; sweeping and protracted West Bank restrictions clearly fail the test; they affect all aspects of Palestinians' lives, infringe on their human rights and deny them the right to family life, health, education, work, and all else Israelis take for granted and get; and in cases of Nablus under siege, the effects are much worse on a locked-down population; there's no justification for causing so much harm for whatever benefits Israel claims to be getting; they're disproportionately way out of whack.
Israel also imposes its might without military legislation or written orders. For measures this far-reaching and causing so much harm, orders are merely passed down the chain of command verbally with lots of latitude on their implementation on the ground no matter how harsh. Such a system begs for abuse, and that's exactly what happens repeatedly.
Without official restrictions in writing, it's near impossible to monitor how the IDF administers them or judge what's right or wrong. By its policy, Israel has, in fact, given the army unlimited latitude, made it unaccountable, and instituted a system guaranteed to punish and abuse.
Under international humanitarian law, it's a system of strictly prohibited collective punishment. Article 50 of the Hague Regulations states: "No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also states: "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited." The UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (quoted above) concurs. So do all independent human rights experts.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
