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AG Avihay Mandelblitt

The Regulation Act, aimed at stopping the hateful phenomenon by which anti-Zionist NGOs haul into court Arabs who claim ownership of Judea and Samaria land where Jewish communities have lived for decades—followed by the court’s decision to raze said communities out of existence—is in its final stages before being submitted for a first reading in the Knesset plenum. The new law will compel the claimants who proves his case in court to accept the same outcome any claimant does over on the 1949 side of the green line, namely, market value compensation, possibly accompanied by a fine if malice was involved.

However, in preparation for the vote on the Regulation Act, authored by MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), the law was modified, softened, if you will, to include an option whereby should the claimant be unhappy with the offered compensation, they are allowed to sue in Israeli court.

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Several MKs involved in the new legislation have told Makor Rishon that its chances to pass are high. But that does not seem to alter AG Avihai Mandelblit’s objection to the very idea of a Regulation Act, which, as he told Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, would constitute a violation of international law.

A decision to take the bill to a vote would forever alter the relationship between the Netanyahu government and its legal counselors, who so far have been used to riding roughshod over proposed legislation, getting elected ministers to kill bills based strictly on their recommendations, warnings and, occasionally, threats.

“Gone are the days when the politicians were guests and the jurists owned the house,” Likud and Habayit Hayehudi MKs told Makor Rishon this week. Indeed, Amona appears to be merely the excuse for this new confrontation between rightwing legislators and the Supreme Court. The real cause célèbre here is the curbing of Supreme Court powers, something a majority of Israelis appear to crave.

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