Peace Now blasts legal opinion green-lighting expropriation of Palestinian land

The Peace Now settlement watchdog lambastes a Justice Ministry legal opinion that green-lit the expropriation of private Palestinian land in order to legalize the Haresha outpost in the central West Bank.

“This move is a mockery of justice. Since the Regulation Law is tied up in court, the Ministry of Justice is yet again using every crooked justification it can concoct to expropriate private Palestinian land in order to dissect the West Bank with settlements until they have achieved their one-state apartheid agenda,” the left-wing NGO says in a statement.

Today’s opinion allows the temporary seizure of land by Israeli authorities in order to pave an access road to Haresha, which sits near the Talmon settlement.

While Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit ruled in November 2017 that the Palestinian land could be permanently expropriated so long as the original owners were compensated, the Justice Ministry legal opinion recommends that the access road be paved in the form of a tunnel underneath the private Palestinian land leading to Haresha.

The paving of an access road is the last step required by the state before it can legalize Haresha. The state over a decade ago alerted the High Court it intends to do.