A great step forward: Israel’s Supreme Court orders the dismantling of illegal West Bank settlement

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

I find myself criticizing Israel constantly, but today I have to commend the Supreme Court of Israel for actually following international law, for once. There are, however, some caveats to this step forward.

Israel’s Supreme Court, for the first time, has formally demanded that an illegal settlement north of Jerusalem be disbanded.

I must applaud the Supreme Court for finally refusing to ignore this problem any longer and kowtow to the Israeli government’s demands for extensions and concessions.

The settlement was constructed in violation of international law on private Palestinian-owned land. Since 2006 when Peace Now filed a lawsuit against the illegal settlement, the Israeli government has successfully delayed evacuation and ignored deadlines.

The most major caveat to the Supreme Court’s order to disband this settlement of 250 Israelis built in 1999, called the Migron outpost, is that Israeli settlers (better characterized as illegal occupiers) have simply ignored these orders in the past.

When an order was issued in 2010 to evacuate yet another illegally constructed Jewish settlement in a mostly Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem, it was simply ignored.

Unfortunately, some in the Israeli government support these illegal actions that fly in the face of their own courts and the international system of law.

When the order was passed down via court decision to evacuate residents of the illegally built Beit Yonatan apartments, Jerusalem city manager Yair Ma’ayan simply declared that they had no intention of following the order or enforcing it.

I sincerely hope that this time the settlers will listen to their own Supreme Court and remove themselves from their illegally occupied Palestinian land.

The Migron settlement was re-founded in 2001 and is now the largest illegal settlement in the West Bank, consisting of roughly 50 families. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision dictates that the settlement be dismantled by April 2012, but this does not guarantee that this will actually occur.

This decision represents a massive leap forward, because this is an official recognition that Israel has illegally occupied Palestinian land.

As Haaretz pointed out today, “the decision to dismantle an outpost as large as MIgron is likely to cause a political storm in the West Bank settlements.” Of course, they are referring to the radical Zionist-imperialist political views held by the illegal settlers who occupy land belonging to Palestinians in direct contradiction to international law.

I just hope that this leads to more court decisions and more disbanding of illegal Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank. This would signify an important shift in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could lead towards a viable two-state solution.