HCJ clears path for Gaza synagogue demolition
Dan Izenberg and JPost staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 7, 2005
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The High Court of Justice, in a split decision, rejected the request to hold
another hearing on a petition against destroying the synagogues left behind
in the Gaza Strip. With the path thus cleared, synagogue demolitions could
begin as early as Friday morning, Channel Two news reported.

Four of the seven judges who heared the petitioners' request ruled that it
did not fulfill conditions of the law for holding another hearing on an
issue that had already been decided by the court.

The justices who shared in the majority opinion were Supreme Court President
Aharon Barak, and justices Dorit Beinish, Ayalah Procaccia, and Asher
Grunis. Three of the justices - Edmund Levy, Edna Arbel, and Elyakim
Rubenstein - maintained that the court should reconsider its previous ruling
because of the enormously sensitive question at hand of destroying
synagogues, its great importance and complexity because of the halachic and
national aspects involved and in view of its implications for international
Jewry.

On Tuesday, the government asked the High Court of Justice to reject the
petition calling on the government to seek Palestinian or international
guarantees for the survival of the Gaza Strip synagogues or, if no such
guarantees are forthcoming, to leave them intact.

The government stated its position in a response to the High Court's request
that it make an official appeal to the Palestinian Authority to protect the
synagogues after taking control of the Gaza Strip next week.

The petitioners claimed that Israel's previous request to a senior
Palestinian official was not serious because it was made informally during a
condolence visit to US Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer. Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz reportedly requested that Kurtzer deliver a request to safeguard Gaza
synagogues to an unnamed Palestinian minister.

According to the governement's response to the court, submitted by the
state's representative, Attorney Avi Licht, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
special adviser, Dov Weisglass asked the head of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's
bureau whether the PA would be prepared undertake safeguarding the
synagogues.

According to Licht, Weisglass reported back that "there was no change in the
PA's previous position as delivered by the US ambassador to Israel to the
effect that the PA cannot - and is not prepared - to guarantee the physical
integrity of the synagogues that will remain in the Gaza Strip after the
withdrawal."

Licht included quotes from ministers at Sunday's cabinet meeting, arguing
that the PA would refuse to safeguard the synagogues - and that even if they
did, Palestinian mobs would ignore the PA's orders and destroy the buildings
anyway.

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told the cabinet that "What will happen this time will
be 10 times worse than what happened at Joseph's Tomb and I will tell you
why: There will be an outburst that will be the expression of the pent-up
anger of 38 years [of occupation.] They won't leave one building block
standing."

Licht also wrote that it is not in Israel's interest to ask for
international protection. For one thing, the international community has not
intervened to protect Israel from Palestinian terrorism over the years of
the intifada. For another, the only way international protection could be
effective would be if an international force were dispatched to protect the
synagogues. But Israel is not interested in an international presence in
Gaza, which would only hamper its future attempts to fight back against
Palestinian terrorism.

He also rejected the petitioners' arguments that the destruction of
synagogues by Israel would encourage other governments to destroy the
synagogues in their lands. He wrote that the situation in Gaza, where there
is no law and order, was different from those in sovereign states with
effective governments. If anything, wrote Licht, the pictures of Palestinian
mobs destroying the synagogues might encourage mobs in other lands to do the
same.