Khalida Jarrar

Khalida Jarrar
Palestinian Legislative Council member
Incumbent
Assumed office
2006
Personal details
Born (1963-02-09) 9 February 1963 (age 61)[1]
NationalityPalestinian
Political partyPopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
SpouseGhassan Jarrar

Khalida Jarrar (Arabic: خالدة جرار; born 9 February 1963) is a Palestinian politician.[2] She is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)[3] and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). She was elected to the PLC in January 2006 as one of the PFLP's three deputies[4][5] and has continued to serve as an elected representative ever since. She is also the Palestinian representative on the Council of Europe and is currently head of the Prisoners Committee of the PLC.[6] She played a major role in Palestine's application to join the International Criminal Court.[7]

She has been arrested multiple times by the Israeli authorities. Several of these arrests resulted in administrative detention without any charges being brought. She has also been charged with "incitement and involvement in terror" by an Israeli military court. The incitement charge refers to public statements she made in 2012 in which she criticized the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.[8] The court sentenced her to 15 months in prison, of which she served 6, before being released after an international campaign on her behalf.

In March 2021, after having been held without charge since 2019, she was sentenced by an Israeli military court to two years in prison after a plea bargain, in which she declared herself guilty of membership in an organization, the PFLP, which Israel regards as a terrorist group.[9] She has gone on record to state that her plea bargaining is due to the exhaustingly protracted nature of legal proceedings, lack of faith in Israel's military courts, and the threat, unless she admits guilt, of serving a 7-year sentence.[8] She was released on 26 September 2021.[10] She was rearrested after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War and has been held in detention ever since. [11]

  1. ^ Amira Hass, 'No exit: A Palestinian legislator trapped in the West Bank,' Archived 13 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine Haaretz 6 September 2010
  2. ^ David Hearst, 'INTERVIEW: Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar Archived 19 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine,' Middle East Eye 2 April 2015
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference MEE was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Maan was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Michael Bröning, Political Parties in Palestine: Leadership and Thought, Archived 18 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Palgrave 2013 pp.108-112 (interview) p.102.
  6. ^ '58 MEPs address letter to HR/VP Mogherini concerning arrest of PLC member Khalida Jarrar,' Archived 25 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine GUE/NGL 14 April 2015.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference ToIA6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b Born Without Civil Rights Israel’s Use of Draconian Military Orders to Repress Palestinians in the West Bank Human Rights Watch 17 December 2019
  9. ^ "Israel sentences Palestinian lawmaker to two years in prison". AP NEWS. 20 April 2021.
  10. ^ Staff, Al Jazeera. "Palestinian MP Jarrar released from Israeli prison". www.aljazeera.com.
  11. ^ Gideon Levy, 'For a Bit of Air, the Palestinian Lawmaker Lies Down on the Floor, by the Crack Under the Cell Door,' Haaretz 30 August 2024