Ben Gvir appeals to Supreme Court against agreement with Lebanon

Read also Israel is being navigated into troubled waters   by Barry Shaw
Israeli decision makers are preparing potential military scenarios over renewed tension with Lebanon.

Supreme Court to hold hearing on the petition on Thursday of next week. The State of Israel will be required to respond to the petition by Tuesday.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

The chairman of the Otzma Yehudit Party, MK Itamar Ben Gvir, on Thursday submitted a petition to the Supreme Court demanding that it order the Israeli government to refrain from signing the maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and claiming that it is an illegal agreement that the transitional government has no authority to implement.

The Supreme Court ordered that the hearing on the petition will be held on Thursday of next week. The State of Israel will be required to respond to the petition and other petitions submitted on the matter by Tuesday. The panel of judges hearing the case will be made up of President Esther Hayut, Uzi Fogelman and Noam Solberg.

The petition argues that, contrary to the words of the Attorney General, who said the negotiations with Lebanon have been going on for many years and therefore the government as a transitional government is allowed to sign the agreement, the talks with Lebanon began on June 24, four days after Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced the dissolution of the Knesset, and as such the entire negotiation was carried out by a transitional government and it was not done as a continuation of the previous government’s policy.

In addition, the Attorney General claimed that there is no need to pass the agreement by a vote in the Knesset because, she claimed, the territory in question is indeed held by Israel, but it never applied sovereignty over it and did not stipulate that Israeli law would officially apply to it.

Ben Gvir’s petition cites a ruling by the former President of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, who stated that the correct rule for determining sovereignty over a territory is determined according to the borders of the state, and there does not need to be a formal application of the law, but it is enough to state that the territory is within the borders of the state.

“Only yesterday Lapid said, in a way that does not shame a dictator in a communist country, that he did not bring the agreement to a vote in the Knesset ‘because of the behavior of the opposition.’ This is a shameful agreement of surrender, but mainly it is illegal opportunism. We will do everything to stop this dangerous agreement,” said Ben Gvir.

<
>
<
>