Today, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) is scheduled to hear a petition submitted by Peace Now on behalf of more than a dozen Arab residents of Bethlehem, who demand that the State of Israel allocate land in the area slated for construction of Givat Eitam, a new neighborhood of Efrat to be built on Israeli state land in Gush Etzion. The petition claims that Israel’s policy of land allocation discriminates against Palestinians.
According to Peace Now, the allocation of the land to the Efrat Municipality for construction of Givat Eitam – in Area C, the portion of Judea and Samaria placed under full Israeli jurisdiction under the Oslo framework – is tainted by racial and national discrimination and disregards the interests of the Palestinian residents of the general area who allegedly have a “connection” to the land. In an earlier stage of the case, a panel of High Court justices headed by Chief Justice Hayut issued a conditional order instructing the Israeli government to explain why it does not consider allocating land to the Palestinian petitioners – but Peace Now was not satisfied and petitioned the High Court for a temporary injunction to freeze all planning procedures for the new neighborhood until a final judgement is handed down in the case.
Israel should never have to justify why it will not allocate land to Palestinian Arab petitioners and furthermore, it does not need to answer to left-wing Jew hating NGO’s like Peace Now. This lawsuit is another attempt to delegitimize Israel. We pray that Prime Minister-Elect Benjamin Netanyahu chooses a new Justice Minister that can put a stop to this one-sided political show and put NGO’s like Peace Now in their place, which is not in any part of “Yisrael Shelayma.”
Photo courtesy of Regavim