A Financial Times article (Rabbi’s arrest sparks identity debate in Israel, Aug. 3) by Mehul Srivastava, their Jerusalem correspondent, included a paragraph contextualising the new Jewish Nation-State law as part of a pattern of ‘discriminatory’ measures.
We contacted Mr. Srivastava to express our concern that his characterisation of the change to Palestinian access to the Supreme Court is extremely misleading.
The change he’s referring to does stipulate that Israeli “district courts will now have jurisdiction to discuss West Bank Palestinian petitions regarding “planning and construction” disputes. However, Palestinians will still be able to appeal district court rulings to the Supreme Court. So, whilst district courts will now hear such Palestinian cases first, instead of going directly to the Supreme Court, it’s not accurate to claim that the new measure “blocks” Palestinians from approaching the Supreme Court.
A few hours later, we received a reply from the journalist thanking us for the clarification and informing us that the agreed to change the sentence.
Here’s the new wording:
The following addendum was also added to the bottom of the page noting the correction: