Israel High Court Strikes Down Law that Legalized Unlawful Settler Homes in West Bank

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down a law passed in 2017 to retroactively legalize settler houses built illegally on Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank, CBN News reports. The law was frozen from the time it passed in order for petitions against it to be heard.

In an 8-1 decision, the court ruled that the “Law for the Regularization of Settlement in Judea and Samaria” was “unconstitutional.” Ordering the legislation be nullified, the court said it “violates the property rights and equality of Palestinians, and gives clear priority to the interests of Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents [of the West Bank].”

In response to the ruling, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said the legislation was “an important law for settlement activity and its future” and that work would be done to re-enact it. However, government coalition party Blue and White stated the law “in its format runs counter to the constitutional situation in Israel, and its legal problems were known at the time of its approval.”

The law had provided that Palestinian landowners would receive 125% financial compensation for property taken for Jewish settlements, but the court said this did not lend “sufficient weight” to the status of “Palestinians as protected residents in an area under military occupation.”

Giving the ruling, Chief Justice Esther Hayut, said it was “understandable” that Israelis would want to legalize the homes rather than tear them down, but this “does not justify such significant violation of property rights and the rights to dignity and equality that the Palestinian population [deserves].”

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