Digest: Recent Legislation and Cases

Abstract

Dwikat et al. v. The Government of Israel et al. (not yet published) (The Eilon Moreh decision)This decision was the result of a petition brought by 17 residents of the Arab village of Rogeeb near Nablus on the West Bank for an order that the seizure of their lands to establish the Jewish settlement of Eilon Moreh had been illegal and therefore, that the settlement must be dismantled. 1 On June 7, 1979, the settlers, aided by the army and heavy earth-moving equipment, moved onto the settlement site near Nablus. Two days before that, the regional army commander of the West Bank had signed an order confiscating the property "for military needs", and on June 20, the High Court of Justice granted an order nisi and a temporary injunction forbidding additional expansion of the infant settlement. Representatives of the settlers were later joined as additional respondents.The legal framework for the decision in this case had been set forth in a 1978 opinion of the court concerning the seizure of land for another West Bank settlement, that of Beit-El. 2 It was then unanimously decided by the panel of five justices (Landau