Many studies suggest that courts fail to protect individual rights since they support and uphold state repressive practices during periods of emergency or confrontation. Previous studies focused on judicial policies as reflected injudicial declarations and decisions that were fully disposed by judges and officially published. I argue that the study of out-of-court settlements and the comparison between the outcomes of settlements and the judicial rhetoric are key to understanding the behavior of courts in times of national crisis. At such times, courts may hesitate to openly confront the government on the issue of minority rights, but they may strive to protect minorities by exerting pressure on the governmental legal apparatus and by effecting out-of-court settlements more favorable to minorities than official decisions. Thus, courts influence social practices while avoiding government or public opinion counterreactions that would impair their institutional autonomy. This argument is demonstrated in a case study of the Israeli High Court of Justice during the Palestinian Intifada.

The question of whether and to what extent interest groups are more successful than other parties in litigation is the subject of many debates among social scientists. Previous works in the field concentrated on checking outcomes of cases that were disposed of by courts in officially published final decisions. We sought to analyze not only final court decisions but also the outcomes of out-of-court settlements. Drawing from Marc Galanter's hypothesis that groups, especially those who are``repeat players,'' are likely to use out-of-court settlements more often and more efficiently than other litigants (Galanter 1974), we measured actual case outcomes of petitions brought before the Israeli High Court of Justice. We found that groups in general, and``repeat player'' groups in particular, achieved a success rate significantly higher than other litigants. We also found that the relative advantage of groups in litigation is the result of their ability to reach out-of-court settlements with government agencies.

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