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Articles on Israeli High Court Decision on Peace Now's Petition

The Court ruled in favor of the 2005 order to demolish the illegal West Bank outposts of Haresha and Yuval.
Ynet: "Court criticizes State over illegal outposts"  & Ma'ariv: "High Court of Justice Rules: Dead Officer's House to Be Demolished" follow the Ha'aretz article

07/13/2009              

Ha'aretz: "Court to state: Raze West Bank outposts slated for demolition in 2005"

By Tomer Zarchin, Haaretz Correspondent

The High Court ordered the state on Monday to carry out orders issued in 2005 for the demolition of two illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, Haresha and Yuval.

In their ruling, Justices Dorit Beinish, Elyakim Rubinstein and Yoram Danziger lambasted the state for delaying the move and for contesting a petition to the High Court on the matter for over four years.

The Israeli NGO Peace Now submitted the 2005 petition demanding the evacuation of the outposts, in which a number of Israel Defense Forces officers reside, Army Radio reported.

The Haresha outpost, located west of Ramallah, consists of six unauthorized permanent structures. The Yuval outpost, southeast of Ariel, has 12 such structures.

In response to the Peace Now petition, the state had argued that it must focus its efforts on demolishing buildings in the initial stages of construction.

The High Court justices said in their ruling Monday that it was understandable that the state wants to conduct the required evacuations without the use of force and that the state had a preferred order for enforcement against unauthorized construction.

The justices added, "In these circumstances it is the state's responsibility, in accordance with its stance, to implement the orders or to at least set a decisive timeline for the implementation of part of the fundamental obligations for the execution of the law and its enforcement."

The ruling came after Defense Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. officials that Israel would evacuate 23 West Bank outposts within "weeks and months, not years."

But Obama administration officials are said to want Israel to go much further and eliminate many, if not all, of about 100 outposts scattered across the West Bank.


7/13/09

Ynet: "Court criticizes State over illegal outposts"

Supreme Court president, two other judges give State four months to set timetable for evacuation of 18 buildings in two West Bank outposts. 'It's the State's basic duty to uphold the law and enforce it,' court says

by Aviad Glickman

The High Court of Justice on Monday harshly criticized the State's failure to evacuate 18 buildings in two illegal West Bank outposts.
 
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish and Justices Elyakim Rubinstein and Yoram Danziger wrote in their decision, "Under these circumstances, in accordance with its own stand, the State should have realized its eviction orders or, at the very least, set a realistic timetable for them, as part of its duty to uphold and enforce the law."
 
The judges, who were discussing a petition filed by the left-wing Peace Now movement and Dror Etkes, considered issuing an absolute order, but eventually gave the State four more months to detail the results of hearing procedures which will be held for the tenants before the evacuation.

The petition was filed four years ago and relates to six buildings set up without a license at the illegal outpost of Harsha, east of the Talmon settlement, and 12 buildings set up without a license in the outpost of Hayovel, south of the Eli settlement.

The State claimed that demolition orders had been issued and that the authorities planned to enforce their implementation, in accordance with a plan of action which would be formed later on. The State later said it was mapping the illegal construction and would set a timetable for enforcement actions.

After several delays the State asked for in order to complete the mapping work and set the timetables, last year the State detailed the planned enforcement actions.

"The respondent's desire to execute the required evacuation without using force can be understood. Their approach to set priorities for the enforcement in light of the many steps they must take against the violations of the law in the construction of buildings and illegal outposts, can also be understood," the judges wrote.

They determined, however, that "the development of events so far, since the petition was filed, has been taking more than four years. The State's consistent stand, as presented to the court in its initial responses to the petition, reveals that the discussed buildings were constructed illegally, some on private land, and are therefore subject to demolition orders since 2005."

Despite the harsh criticism, the court expressed its consideration for the fact that the buildings are popular, "and those living in them have their own claims, and there is no disagreement over the fact that those involved in the matter must undergo a hearing procedure before the demolition orders are implemented.
 
"Therefore, we have decided to refrain from issuing the order this time, but to order the State to launch proceedings ahead of implementing the orders it has issued. Under these circumstances, we have found that before submitting our final ruling on this petition, there is a need to begin the required hearing procedures - without any further delay."
 
The High Court ruled that the State must submit an update within four months on the results of the hearing procedure, and then announce a timetable for completing the implementation of the orders. The court will then decide how to carry on with the petition. 


7/14/09

Ma'ariv: "High Court of Justice Rules: Dead Officer's House to Be Demolished"

by Avi Ashkenazi -- The late Maj. Roi Klein, who was a deputy battalion commander in the Golani Brigade, was the most decorated combatant to be killed in the Second Lebanon War, and the story of his death has become one of the IDF's stories of heroism. Klein died when he prostrated himself on a grenade that had been thrown by Hizbullah terrorists at his troops-thereby saving most of the fighting force.

  But yesterday, the High Court of Justice judges decided that the home of Maj. Klein would be evacuated and demolished. The court accepted the petition of Peace Now, which argued that the house, along with 11 other houses in the Hayoval neighborhood of the settlement of Eli in Samaria, was built illegally.

  Peace Now asked the High Court of Justice to intervene and to enjoin the state to evacuate and demolish a number of buildings that were built in outposts in Samaria after the government promised, in 2001, that no further outposts would be built. As a result of the petition, yesterday the High Court of Justice ordered the state to start proceedings toward the implementation of the demolition orders for buildings in the illegal outposts of Haresha, east of the settlement of Talmon, and Hayoval, and ordered it to apprise the court within four months as to the results of the hearings to be given to the residents of the buildings and the timetable for completing the implementation of the demolition orders. The judges, Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinish, Elyakim Rubinstein and Yoram Danziger, accepted the petition by Peace Now, which was represented by Attorney Michael Sfard and Attorney Shlomi Zakariya.

  The judges criticized the state and said that the demolition orders had not been carried out in over four years, even though the buildings had been built unlawfully and some of them on privately-owned land. Under these circumstances, the judges stressed, the state should have carried out the orders or at least set a timetable to do so.

  The Hayoval neighborhood is situated on a hill southeast of Eli. The residents say that the neighborhood appears in the settlement's master plan. The first houses were built in 1998 to mark the jubilee events of the state [yovel means jubilee], giving the neighborhood its name, and it has a few dozens private homes with yards.

  The Housing Ministry even authorized the infrastructure, and the Jewish Agency built some of the homes earmarked for demolition according to the court ruling.

  Among the residents of the neighborhood are high-ranking IDF officers. Yesterday there was a bad feeling in the neighborhood. "We are not an outpost, we are a neighborhood of Eli," said Tamar Asraf yesterday, whose house is slated for demolition. "The houses are legal and were built on state land and not on land stolen from private people. We received all the construction permits and we pay taxes. All the residents here are law-abiding people. It's time that the state embraced us and stopped treating us this way."

  Merav Nissan Holtz, another resident whose house is to be demolished, said: "Many of the families here are of army people. They followed their husband all over and, as a result, the construction took time. This is a sad day for all of us. The High Court of Justice made a political, not a legal, ruling."

  In less than two weeks the Klein family and the Golani Brigade will hold a memorial marking three years to Maj. Roi Klein's death. Yesterday his wife Sara refused to comment on the ruling that obliges her and her two little children to leave the home that she and her husband built.

  When she arrived yesterday afternoon at their modest home with the well tended garden in which are planted olive trees, spices and flowers, the neighbors quickly came to tell her about the judges' decision. "This is a harsh blow to her. Also the fact that the decision was made about the same time as the memorial, only makes it worse," said one neighbor.