Michael Sfard (Hebrew:מיכאל ספרד; born 1972) is an Israeli lawyer and political activist specializing in internationalhuman rights law and the laws of war. He has served as counsel in various cases on these topics inIsrael. Sfard has represented a variety ofIsraeli andPalestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements and activists at theIsraeli Supreme Court.[1][2]
Life and work
Michael Sfard was born in 1972 in the Rehov Brazil public housing complex inKiryat HaYovel,Jerusalem.[3]
Sfard is the grandchild of Holocaust survivorZygmunt Bauman.[4] His parents had been expelled from Poland for their involvement in theUniversity of Warsaw student uprisings against the Communist Government in 1968.[5][6][7] When he was five, his family moved to an apartment building inMa'alot Dafna that was home to many journalists.[3][8]
He was a reservist for theIsraeli Defense Forces (IDF) in theGaza Strip while at law school.[10] He served in theNahal Brigade of the IDF, mostly in Lebanon, as a military paramedic.[1][8] According to Sfard, before his reserve duty in Gaza, he believed "left-wing soldiers" should agree to patrol the Palestinian territories "to stop bad things from happening" rather than be conscientious objectors.[10]
While serving in Gaza his views changed, and in a later reservist session, Sfard became a conscientious objector and spent three weeks in military prison due to his refusal to serve as escort for Israeli settlers inHebron.[1][10][11] He was released from the army in 1994 and attended a course on Jewish-Arab encounters atNeve Shalom. He started his legal apprenticeship withAvigdor Feldman in 1998 and worked with him for several years as an attorney.[8]
In 2000, Sfard and his wife moved toLondon so that he could pursue a master's degree, but he says it was also "to get away" from Israel.[8][10] He studied international human rights law, "discovered the subject [he] wanted to work in" and returned the following year having decided that emigration from Israel was "a tragedy".[8][10]
He completed hisMaster of Laws atUniversity College London.[9] Shortly after Sfard returned, he attended the first conference of the groupCourage to Refuse, "saw 200 people who thought and felt like [he] did", and decided to be an activist.[8] In early 2004, Sfard opened his own office inTel Aviv.[10]
Sfard has describedShulamit Aloni as a "major influence" who introduced him through her activities to the world of human rights in Israel.[8]
Sfard's has expressed his views on the role themedia play in his work. He feels that "the media are an important part of the work. They are a tool." In addition, he said that media can influence or create the debate. But, he also said that "I, as any lawyer, have a fear of cameras entering the sanctified zone between the lawyer and the client."[8]
Sfard is the grandson ofsociologistZygmunt Bauman and writerJanina Bauman on his mother's side and ofCommunistYiddish author David Sfard and Cinema Studies Professor Regina Dreyer on his father's side.[15] His father Leon is a mathematician and his motherAnna Sfard is a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Education at theUniversity of Haifa.[16]
Legal activities
Sfard has represented a variety ofIsraeli andPalestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements and activists at theIsraeli Supreme Court.[2] His clients are "mostly Palestinians who live in the West Bank and need permits to come into Israel."[1]
According to theNew York Times, he has brought many cases to challenge theIsraeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, represented hundreds of Israeli soldiers who have refused to serve, with the work mostly being financed "by Israel's premier left-wing nonprofit organizations, which in turn are financed in part by European governments".[1] Sfard and his law office provide legal counsel forYesh Din.[17] Sfard is legal counsel forPeace Now.[10][18]
Cases which Sfard has handled include:
Sfard filed a petition on behalf of a group of Israeli Human Rights organizations against the IDF decision to reduce the size of the humanitarian "safety zone" during bombardments of Gaza.[19]
Sfard has litigated a case on behalf of the Israeli human rights organizationHamoked, against the "permit system" which governs the area between theseparation fence and the1949 armistice line.[20]
Sfard representedPeace Now in a petition against settlement outposts. Sfard litigated the case for the demolition of nine houses built illegally on Palestinian private land, in the outpost known as "Amona".[21] He also litigated the case n which Peace Now demands to evacuate an outpost called "Migron".[22]
A case involving theInternational Solidarity Movement'sBrian Avery, who was wounded during the course of his activities inJenin. Avery was injured in the head by IDF soldiers. Avery accepted a settlement for NIS 600,000 (US$150,000) from the state of Israel in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. Shlomo Lecker was his Israeli lawyer and Sfard represented him as well.[23]
Sfard and co-counsel Carmel Pomerantz, represented 17Bedouin, who lived nearBeer Sheva, claiming the land they were on, includingAl-Araqeeb, belonged to them rather than to the State of Israel. The judge ruled in favor of the State saying that the land was not "assigned to the plaintiffs, nor held by them under conditions required by law" and that they still had to "prove their rights to the land by proof of its registration in theTabu". Furthermore, the judge said that the Bedouin knew they were supposed to register, but didn't, saying "although the complainants are not entitled to compensation, it has been willing to negotiate with them…it is a shame that these negotiations did not reach any agreement." The court ordered the Bedouins to pay legal costs of NIS 50,000.[24]
Defense of Jonathan (Yoni) Ben Artzi who refused to enlist for military service.[25] Ben Artzi considered himself a pacifist and total conscientious objector and therefore objected to serving in the army in any capacity.[26]
Reception
The New York Times described Sfard as "the left’s leading lawyer in Israel".[1]
TheNew America Foundation described Sfard as "Israel's pre-eminent legal expert on settlements and the challenges posed by the broader infrastructure of Israeli occupation to the daily life of Palestinians, to the two-state solution, to American policy and to Israel's democracy" and "Israel's most respected human rights lawyer".[27]
In 2011, a settler fromKiryat Arba was indicted after calling for his assassination in an Internet posting.[1]
IsraeliKnesset MemberDanny Danon of the right-wingLikud party accused Sfard of "trying to bypass democracy" through promoting ideas in the Israeli "legal system because his ideas are not welcome in Israeli society."[10]
Gerald Steinberg, president ofNGO Monitor, said that Sfard "sees the courts as the way to force the changes that he perceives as necessary for Israel, [b]ut he doesn't convince the Israeli public. In any democratic process, you can't use just the legal system to impose an ideology."[1]
Naftali Balanson, Managing Editor of NGO Monitor, said Sfard "is at the center of the NGO industry that exploits the rhetoric of human rights in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict."[10]
Books
Dov Hanin, Michael Sfard,Sharon Rotbard, editors, The Refusenik Trials: The Military Prosecution of Hagai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat Shimri Tsameret, Adam Maor. The Military Prosecution of Yonatan Ben-Artzi, Babel, 2004.
The Last Spy (2007), the biography of the Soviet spyMarcus Klingberg, written by Klingberg with Sfard.[28]
Homa v'mehdal (English titleThe Wall of Folly) (2008), about theWest Bank barrier, written by Reserves Brigadier GeneralShaul Arieli and Sfard.[29]
The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights (2018)[30]
The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2018). Written by Orna Ben-Naftali, Michael Sfard, Hedi Viterbo. Cambridge University Press.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316661376.
