Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has started to explore avenues of establishing a land tribunal as a solution to prevent the evacuation of Jewish settlers from illegal West Bank outposts facing dismantling.
According to Haaretz newspaper on Monday Netanyahu seeks to establish this court to save in particular the illegal outpost of Amona from dismantling.
Recently the land court proposal has been tabled by Netanyahu his justice minister Ayelet Shaked war minister Avigdor Lieberman and attorney general Avichai Mandelblit.
“The proposal is an attempt to adopt the arbitration model used to solve land disputes between Cyprus and Northern Cyprus which is under Turkish military control. The system allows for residents to receive financial compensation for land they own that has been built on” the newspaper said.
In a meeting a few days ago Netanyahu and those ministers discussed this issue with professor Joseph Weiler an international law expert at New York University School of Law.
Netanyahu decided to set up a team headed by Roy Schondorf the deputy attorney general for international law and Ahaz Ben-Ari a legal adviser to the defense establishment.
This team would recommend to the government a way to establish a land arbitration court based on the Cyprus model.
Netanyahu a right-winger who champions Judaization and settlement activities in Jerusalem and the West Bank came up with this idea after the Israeli high court of justice rejected his request for a delay in demolishing settlers’ homes in Amona West Bank.
In their ruling on November 14 the court judges said they feared granting a delay would merely be followed by another request for delay as happened before so they stressed the need to remove the outpost by December 25 2016.
The Jewish community of Amona was built illegally in 1995 on Palestinian-owned land with a financial support from the Israeli government.
