By Nisana Darshan-Leitner
On October 12, 2000, at the very start of the Second Intifada, two Israeli reservists were driving to their base near the Ofer Camp when they accidentally made a wrong turn and wound up in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The soldiers were immediately detained by the Palestinian security services who brought them to the police station in Ramallah. Quickly, the rumor was spread throughout the city that 2 IDF soldiers were being held in the local jail. Hundreds of Arab residents surrounded the police station demanding that the soldiers be turned over to the mob. Instead, the policemen themselves proceeded to brutally beat the 2 Jews to death and then threw the bodies from a second floor window to the crowd, which was chanting for Jewish blood. An infamous photo was snapped of one of the killers waving his bloody hands out the window.
The brutal murders and the horrifying video footage broadcast on the news shocked the world and enraged Israelis. Finally, it was understood that, then, PA leader Yasser Arafat and his security forces, made up of PLO thugs, were unrepentant terrorists who should never have been permitted to return to the West Bank.
Shortly thereafter, we brought a lawsuit on behalf of the victims’ families in the Jerusalem District Court. This was the first time anyone had ever sued the PA and PLO for their terror attacks. We demanded that the Palestinian leadership and the policemen involved be made to pay for these heinous killings. “The Ramallah Lynch Case,” as it became known, was the beginning of a courtroom odyssey, a legal effort that would take decades to navigate and that would pioneer an entirely new international practice of law – “terror victim litigation”.
After more than twenty years of hard fought litigation we finally received a judgment against the Palestinians involved from the District Court. The problem, now, was that the Israeli Government grew frightened and was blocking our execution efforts against the PA and PLO. They were refusing to sign the order to allow us to seize the tax money Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians every month. Unjustly, the case was being blocked once again.
This week, however, things are beginning to change.
Following in the wake of a recent political incident in which senior officials of the PA utilized their VIP Travel passes to enter Israel and visit the Israeli village of a convicted Arab terrorist who had just completed a 40 year sentence, the Government grew outraged and decided to retaliate. The terrorist had murdered a young Israeli soldier in 1982 and had concluded his 4 decade sentence in the Israeli prison. Outrageously, the visiting PA officials congratulated the released prisoner on completing his term, and praised the murder of the soldier to the crowd of Israeli-Arabs waving PLO flags. The media coverage caused quite a stir here.
Israel announced it was imposing sanctions against the Palestinians, including canceling the VIP passes, withholding certain tax revenues that the government collects on behalf of the PA and paying the long delayed court judgments of the Israeli victims. It is Israel’s intention to sanction the Palestinians, deter their public glorification of convicted murderers, stop their financing of extremist groups and to compel them to understand that there is a real price for their brazen support of terror against Jews.
I told the newspapers that “the victims of terrorism thank the Minister for finally deciding to stop the judicial torture and endless delays that the families were subjected to. It is hoped that from now on they will receive the compensation money they truly deserve. This is a necessary and just step that is required to implement the historic verdict given in the Ramallah terror case and for the many other victims against the Palestinian Authority, which was found legally responsible for the brutal attacks of the Second Intifada. We all hope that this offset will only be the first step and will also be carried out in other cases that are placed before the Israeli government and are similarly situated. The time has come for those who finance terrorism against innocent Israelis to start paying for the pain and suffering they inflict.”
We are now waiting to see what the District Court will do.
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom,
Their behavior disqualifies them as Israeli citizens.
You may recall that for a long time, I have been saying that eminent domain should be applied to the land underneath the homes of terrorists that the IDF was blowing up because
a) They could just crowdfund or appeal to the EU or PA and rebuild
and
b) There is no deterrent because in keeping the land, they are emboldened in their hope of chasing the Jews out.
Applying eminent domain and awarding the land to the Jewish victims and their families serves justice, redeems the land one plot at a time, and serves as a deterrent.
The victims could keep the land, sell it or donate it to the JNF. Basic law says state owned land may not be relinquished.
I recently read that was done but the Supreme Court quahed the use of eminent domain.
The US Supreme Court in recent years authorized eminent domain under far more questionable circumstances when it authorized a city government to take land from one business to award it to another on the grounds that the neighborhood was blighted.
Eminent domain is a practice dating from the end of the civil war which authorizes the government to seize privately owned land for public purposes such as building a railroad that has been dramatically expanded to facilitate gentrification of impoverished neighborhoods. For example, Columbia University in West Harlem and NYU in the West Village are the worst culprits in New York City; In Israel, it would be justified.
The court’s decision should be reversed by the Knesset right away.
Haven’t found the article, yet, but I found this:
“‘Amona could never happen in the US due to eminent domain’
Arutz Sheva catches up with MK Shuli Mualem and pro-Israel activist Dr. Joseph Frager on the Regulation Law and efforts to save Amona.”
Eliran Baruch
Dec 13, 2016 at 9:50 AM (GMT+2)
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/221655
Found it
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/10/israeli-supreme-court-strikes-down-law-authorizing-expropriation-of-palestinian-private-property-for-transfer-to-israeli-settlers-and-cites-my-work-on-eminent-domain-in-the-us-in-the-process/
You may recall that for a long time, I have been saying that eminent domain should be applied to the land underneath the homes of terrorists that the IDF was blowing up because
a) They could just crowdfund or appeal to the EU or PA and rebuild
and
b) There is no deterrent because in keeping the land, they are emboldened in their hope of chasing the Jews out.
Applying eminent domain and awarding the land to the Jewish victims and their families serves justice, redeems the land one plot at a time, and serves as a deterrent.
The victims could keep the land, sell it or donate it to the JNF. Basic law says state owned land may not be relinquished.
I recently read that was done but the Supreme Court quahed the use of eminent domain.
The US Supreme Court in recent years authorized eminent domain under far more questionable circumstances when it authorized a city government to take land from one business to award it to another on the grounds that the neighborhood was blighted.
Eminent domain is a practice dating from the end of the civil war which authorizes the government to seize privately owned land for public purposes such as building a railroad that has been dramatically expanded to facilitate gentrification of impoverished neighborhoods. For example, Columbia University in West Harlem and NYU in the West Village are the worst culprits in New York City; In Israel, it would be justified.
The court’s decision should be reversed by the Knesset right away.
Haven’t found the article, yet, but I found this:
“‘Amona could never happen in the US due to eminent domain’
Arutz Sheva catches up with MK Shuli Mualem and pro-Israel activist Dr. Joseph Frager on the Regulation Law and efforts to save Amona.”
Eliran Baruch
Dec 13, 2016 at 9:50 AM (GMT+2)
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/221655
Found it
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/10/israeli-supreme-court-strikes-down-law-authorizing-expropriation-of-palestinian-private-property-for-transfer-to-israeli-settlers-and-cites-my-work-on-eminent-domain-in-the-us-in-the-process/