a-Historical Victory of Palestine

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

On August 28, 2013, the ground under the Israeli Government shook so badly that all the illegitimate paperwork done since 1967 fell from the lawyers hands into the deepest sea. Attorney-General^*Yehuda Weinstein announced that the State will stop the confiscation of Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem.^**

The State of Israel was forced to recognize the illegality of its actions to its own Supreme Court.

May's Unprecedented Ruling

East Jerusalem Back to the Jerusalem of the East: The Underground House Church of North Korea

The decision came after an unprecedented ruling of a seven-judge panel of the High Court of Justice+ on May 23, 2013. At the moment, it was analyzed as a procedural little nothing, the kind of things that lawyers rejoice at. The Supreme Court ordered Mr. Weinstein to appear personally and explain the State's position on using a 1950 property law to confiscate east Jerusalem properties from Palestinians for the benefit of Jews and the State of Israel.

In the Israeli Administration clockwork, the Attorney-General never appears in Court; instead he sends representatives and deputies to present the state’s position even on some of the most important constitutional cases.

The order was a first in the country's history, showing how important the issue was seen by the Supreme Court. The order specified "we cannot at this moment solve the specific concrete cases without requesting an answer to the fundamental question raised in these appeals, since the central question will likely have a wide impact, including in the political realm, we believe there is a need for an additional hearing in which the attorney-general himself appears."

The unprecedented order came after Attorney Avigdor Feldman, a prominent lawyer who defended some of the Palestinian petitioners, complained that the state’s representatives "had no answer for anything," failing even to satisfy the Supreme Court in answering questions about how often the state had used the Absentee Property Law to confiscate residences and land in east Jerusalem.

Back in May, nobody guessed that this tiny-little procedural thing would defeat the State of Israel.

East Jerusalem

Absentee Property Law

Legislated in 1950, the Absentee Property Law is one of the most controversial laws ever legislated by the Knesset, second only to the Law of Return. The law was used to take over Palestinians homes and lands that were left absent or abandoned during or following the war.

Following the 1967 War, Israel annexed^** East Jerusalem; this was formalized with the 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel. Since then, the Israeli Administration used the Absentee Property Law to illegally confiscate Palestinian properties, in clear violation of the Geneva Fourth Convention.⁺⁺

Over the years, even the State of Israel couldn't ignore its own inconsistent policies while using this law. It was invoked for the taking over of valuable properties; it was ignored for less-valuable ones. Former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar (who had served also as IDF Advocate-General and Attorney-General) and other prominent legal officials have opposed its use.

East Jerusalem Demolished Houses Related: Robbing East Jerusalem Did you know? Ghosts of Jerusalem

Attorney-General Acknowledged Defeat

It would be easy to claim that the failure of the Attorney-General to appear in Court was the result of a battle on personal honor and reputation. Who are the Justices to summon him? This is often the case in Israel, but not this time. This time, the Attorney-General couldn't defend the State-crimes even before the State-Court.

Today, Mr. Weinstein announced that the State will stop using the Absentee Property Law to confiscate East Jerusalem properties.

Attorney Feldman is not satisfied with this, saying "The state must reject all of its old position, since the East Jerusalem Arab lands in question are not absentee property, and not merely stop using the 1950 law, but declare that the 1950 law can never apply in East Jerusalem, any other conclusion is 'ahistorical.'"

He also rejected a committee appointed by Weinstein to study each case, stating that the committee's guidelines make no sense since it was told to consider "security issues" in making decisions about whether property was absentee or not. "How is security connected to the legal question of whether a specific parcel of land is absentee property?" he asked the Court. "Security cannot be part of the legal analysis of whether the land is absentee property belonging to the state or belongs to specific people."

The term coined by Feldman, 'ahistorical,' is important. Israel is attempting to rewrite history^& to the extent that it even features retroactive laws.^&& In that sense, the State of Israel is not only illegitimate, but also out of human history, an ahistorical state.

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^* Attorney General of Israel (HaYoetz HaMishpati LaMemshala, literally The Legal Advisor to the Government) is the head of the executive branch legal system. Israel’s State Attorney (in Hebrew: Praklitut Hamedinah) is the legal representative of the State of Israel in its courts.

^** Following the 1967 War, Israel annexed East Jerusalem; this was formalized with the 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel. The world opposed this law; the UN Security Council Resolution 478, adopted by fourteen votes to none, with the abstention of the United States of America, declared that the law was "null and void" and "must be rescinded." Yet, in 2013, Israel speaks not only of annexing Eastern Jerusalem, but the entire West Bank. In the current situation, Palestinians living in Eastern Jerusalem are considered "residents" and live under Israeli law, unlike their neighbors in Bethlehem or Ramallah. This has facilitated the theft of lands. The current situation is the result of British efforts to simplify the land ownership registration system used by the Ottoman Empire. Their intentions may have been good, but they never finished the process. After the city was split between Jordan and Israel in 1948, each country continued the British-designed regularization process. After the conquest of Eastern Jerusalem, Israel's Attorney General decided to freeze the process there. Due to the legal freeze, denizens cannot deal formally with their properties; they are forced to use "Power of Attorney" documents, and cannot easily divide properties. In year 2000, rumorsclaiming that Israel would deny residence to those living outside the city, brought back thousands that were attempting to settle elsewhere. Since then, East Jerusalem had become overpopulated. The odd legal situation has created a fertile ground for land-crimes. See Robbing East Jerusalem.

⁺ Israel's Supreme Court of Justice usually operates as the highest appellate court in the country, but it features also a special operational mode as a court of first instance, called in Hebrew bagatz (acronym for High Court for Justice, not to be confounded with the formal name of the court: The High Court). In this instance, everybody under the jurisdiction of the Court can initiate a process against the State of Israel if he feels one of his rights has been legitimately oppressed by the State; this is the result of Israel lacking a Constitution and formal recognition of Human Rights.

⁺⁺ The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of an occupying power's civilian population into occupied territory; thus the Israeli settlements in the West bank clearly violate it. Israel disputes that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian territories, claiming that they had not been legally held by a sovereign prior to Israel taking control of them. Israel's interpretation has been rejected by the International Court of Justice and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem enter this definition.

^& See Israel Renounces Imperial Monument, the article analyzes the reconstruction of the Palace in Herodion as per the imperial delusions of Prime Minister Netanyahu and in contradiction to all historical evidence. No less shocking was today's (August 28, 2013) headline in Settler Channel 7. Foreign archeologists found a Tuborg beer can-opener inside a sealed chamber in Sussita. If Israel's claims that the site wasn't touched are true, then Tuborg enjoyed business in the Holy Land more than 2,000 years ago!

Adolf Eichmann

&&The Israeli part of the Eichman saga is especially interesting since it was the second instance a special law, Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Punishment Law (Hok Le’Asiat Din BaNatzim) from August 1, 1950, enabling the execution of Nazis, had been applied. Between 1950 and 1961, this law was used to prosecute 29 Jewish Holocaust survivors alleged to have been Nazi collaborators. The first and only time it was used to execute a person, was in the Adolf Eichmann case. He was illegally kidnapped by Mossad from Argentina in 1960 and two years later was hanged. What makes this a special event from a legal point of view is that this law is a retroactive and extraterritorial law, since the State of Israel didn’t exist during WWII. Moreover, the alleged crimes were neither committed in Israel nor against Israeli citizens.

An ex post facto law (Latin for “after the fact”), or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions committed prior to the enactment of the law. Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution, though some countries accept them. These laws cannot be accepted as fair practice, regardless of the justifications used for their approval. Simply, how can one protect himself against a law that has not been legislated? Imagine the USA legislating in 2012 a new law declaring all bubble-gum chewing performed before 2012 a crime. Then the government would declare all citizens guilty unless proven otherwise, and fine them $1.00 automatically. States applying this horror assume people have the power of precognition (Israel did that again recently, see Minority Report: IDF arrests Palestinian prisoner released in Shalit swap). Thus, the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Punishment Law cannot be accepted as a legitimate law, especially due to its geopolitical consequences. If we accept this, we will be forced also to accept a Laotian law sentencing Americans chewing bubble-gum in Honduras to death.