High Court orders IDF to protect Palestinian farmers from settlers

[Poll_Blind]

From Ha'Aretz:

The High Court of Justice ruled Monday that the government and Israel Defense Forces must act to ensure the safety of Palestinian farmers working their fields and to prevent settlers from harming their land, property or persons.

The High Court ruled on a petition submitted by the residents of five Palestinians villages protesting an IDF decision to keep them from reaching their fields in an effort to protect them from settler attacks.

Justices Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin and Salim Joubran said that preventing the farmers from reaching their lands with the aim of ensuring the safety of the settlers could be justified, but preventing access in order to ensure the safety of the Palestinians themselves is not.

The move, the court deemed, "is extremely unfair and represents a severe violation of basic rights through the surrender to violence and criminal acts. A policy that prevents Palestinian residents from reaching lands belonging to them, in the name of their own defense, is like a policy forbidding someone from entering his home in order to protect him from a thief."

The justices also sharply criticized the lack of law enforcement toward settlers in the Palestinian territories.

--snip--

PB

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Dupe

Same article being discussed here: link

[AlamoDemoc]

2. IOF will ignore this ruling just as they have ignored many past rulings

[The Magistrate]

3. An Excellent Decision, Sir

It would be wise for it to be enforced.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. It will be interesting to see if it's enforced...

In the past it's been enforced only sporadically, and this is a problem that's been going on for a long time, especially when it comes to the olive harvests...

Foreseen But Not Prevented: The Israeli Law Enforcement Authorities Handling of Settler Attacks on Olive Harvesters