25 Facts About Felicia Langer

Felicia Langer was a German-Israeli attorney and human rights activist known for her defence of Palestinian political prisoners in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Felicia Langer authored several books alleging human rights violations on the part of Israeli authorities.

Felicia Langer lived in Germany from 1990 and acquired German citizenship in 2008.

Felicia Langer briefly worked for a Tel Aviv law firm, but then opened up her own lawyer's office in 1966.

Felicia Langer was the first lawyer to assist Palestinians in cases involving land confiscation, house demolition, deportation, and torture before Israeli military courts.

Felicia Langer counted her 1979 successful defense of Nablus mayor Bassam Shaka as the high point of her career.

Felicia Langer defended him successfully, having the expulsion order overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

For many years Felicia Langer was vice president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights.

Felicia Langer later joined the communist Rakah party, in which she became a central committee member.

Felicia Langer accepted teaching positions at the universities of Bremen and Kassel and continued to author books which have been translated into several languages.

Felicia Langer became patron of the association Refugees' Children in Lebanon which assists Palestinian refugee families.

Felicia Langer furthermore considered the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as undermining the possibility of a two-state solution and demanded the complete and unconditional retreat of Israel from the territories conquered in 1967 and a right to return for any descendant of the Palestinian refugees.

Felicia Langer headed a legal team to defend the journalists who had been arrested following the closure of the Israeli newspaper Derekh Hanitzotz in February 1988.

In 2005, Felicia Langer was awarded the Erich Muhsam Prize for her continuing struggle for the human rights of the Palestinian people.

Felicia Langer was a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations.

Felicia Langer died on 21 June 2018, aged 87, in Tubingen, Germany.

Felicia Langer was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First class, by the President of Germany Horst Kohler following the nomination by the government of Baden-Wurttemberg, itself based on suggestions by the publicist Evelyn Hecht-Galinski and the city of Tubingen.

Felicia Langer furthermore mentioned her childhood and youth rife with distress, war, persecution and flight.

Polish-German journalist and author Henryk Broder assumed that Kohler had made the decision, ignoring Felicia Langer's statements criticizing Israel.

Arno Lustiger, Ralph Giordano and Arno Hamburger announced their intent to return their Federal Crosses of Merit if Felicia Langer's award was not revoked.

Felicia Langer said she never compared the Israeli foreign policy to the Holocaust, but considered it as a policy of apartheid.

The Israeli travellers' guide, Motke Shomrat, known for his advocacy for the conciliation between Israel and Germany, and honoured with a Federal Cross of Merit, returned it on 24 July 2009, as Felicia Langer had supposedly consented anti-Israeli statements of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which was denied by Felicia Langer.

Felicia Langer said that Langer had a long track of supporting forces in benefit of violence, death and extremism.

Felicia Langer considers that making Israel the only responsible for the situation in the Middle East is typical of an anti-Semitic pattern of argumentation.

Felicia Langer's books discuss the torture of detainees, routine violation of international law prohibiting deportation, as well as collective punishment.