AG objects to PA petitions to Israeli courts against laws providing for compensation for terror vicitms

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara strongly objects to a petition filed by the Palestinian Authority against two recently passed laws providing for compensation and damages for the victims of terrorism from the terrorists themselves and their financial supporters, including the PA.

In her response to the petition written for the attorney general by the State Attorney’s Office, Baharav-Miara points out that the Palestinian Authority “pays every year, by virtue of a series of laws it legislated, massive sums to those who were involved in acts of terrorism,” including to the terrorists themselves or their relatives, through salaries, benefits and stipends.

“It cannot be considered appropriate that a court in Israel would open its gates to the Palestinian Authority and hear its arguments about the supposed injury to its constitutional rights, while it continues with its abhorrent and disgraceful policy,” says the attorney general in her response.

She adds that the state will argue that it is inappropriate for the court to even entertain the Palestinian Authority’s petition and should be rejected outright, since it is “contrary to public policy” in light of the fact that through the petition the PA is seeking to continue with its policy of “rewarding terrorists and their relatives.”

Baharav-Miara adds that the court should also reject the petition because the PA fails in its petition to acknowledge that it provides payments to terrorists but yet seeks to have Knesset legislation holding it liable for such actions annulled; because relations between Israel and the PA must be conducted on the diplomatic level as stipulated in diplomatic agreements the two sides have signed; and because the PA failed to explain in its petition why the constitutional rights it claims under Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty should apply to it.

The PA’s petition is unprecedented and is the first time it has petitioned the High Court of Justice.

High Court Justice Alex Stein, a conservative, ruled in May that the court would hear the petition and that the respondents, the Knesset, the government and the attorney general must file responses to the petition.

A court hearing has been set for August 4.