Khan al-Ahmar can be razed if Israeli government wants to do so - High Court

The High Court of Justice upheld its ruling that the illegal West Bank Bedouin herding village of Khan al-Ahmar could be evacuated, but that it was up to the state to decide whether to move forward on the matter.

It accepted the state’s argument made at a May 1 hearing that no action could be taken against the village at this time due to security and foreign relations concerns.

“The petition before us has exhausted itself,” Justice Alex Stein wrote in the opinion he issued on Sunday with regard to a petition against the village first filed in 2019 by the right-wing nongovernmental group Regavim.

In dismissing that petition, it stood by its 2018 ruling on the matter that the village of over 200 members of the Abu Dahuk clan of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe could be demolished. Both then and now, however, it did not order the state to do so.

The best the court can do, Stein wrote, is to declare that the village “was built illegally and that it can be evacuated and demolished.” He added that the state “cannot at this time intervene.”

Stein wrote that the state has not shirked from its “principled duty to destroy” illegal construction such as Khan al-Ahmar.

It is, however, “unable to do so at this time for reasons related to the security of the state and its foreign relations – reasons whose importance far exceeds the public need to enforce the planning and construction laws in the outpost and the state’s rights to the land on which [Khan al-Ahmar was] illegally established,” Stein wrote.

Regavim claims court discriminates between Jews and Palestinians

Regavim charged that the ruling “illustrates that in today’s judicial system, some are more equal than others,” noting that the court had ordered the demolition of illegally built settler outposts in the West Bank even though there were political reasons to refrain from taking action.

“The state’s capitulation to international pressure and today’s High Court of Justice decision granting that capitulation a seal of approval are leading the State of Israel to the brink of anarchy,” Regavim said.

“The ground rules for Israeli retreat have been laid, and foreign concerns now have official confirmation that the Israeli government will back down from its own stated policies and national interests when pressure is applied,” it added.

“Shame! – shame on the government of Israel and shame on the High Court of Justice,” Regavim stated.

Khan al-Ahmar residents say court used 'secret evidence' to reach decision

Khan al-Ahmar’s attorney Tawfiq Jabareen said that in reaching its decision the court had accepted “secret evidence” provided in a closed-door session to reach its decision.

He noted that Stein was considered to be a right-wing judge who had been appointed by former justice minister Ayelet Shaked several years ago. Judge Noam Sohlberg, he explained, lives in a settlement.

Jabareen cautioned that the ruling does not mean the issues in the case have been resolved.

“The court did not dare to interfere with the decisions of the extreme right-wing government, which declared before the court that it would demolish Khan al-Ahmar when the appropriate opportunity arises from a security point of view and when the international political climate permits it,” he said.

The group Friends of the Jahalin called on the government to authorize land for the Bedouin along the lines of a professional plan drawn up last year, but which was halted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The issue of Khan al-Ahmar, a village perched on the edge of Highway 1 just below the Kfar Adumim settlement, has become a political and diplomatic hot potato.

Netanyahu pledged to raze it already in 2018 but stopped those plans after a warning from the International Criminal Court and diplomatic pressure from the country’s allies.

Domestically, however, Netanyahu is under pressure to evacuate the village. Right-wing politicians, including members of his own Likud Party, as well as his coalition partners in Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party have held that the evacuation has enormous symbolic and pragmatic significance when it comes to control of Area C of the West Bank, which is under IDF civil and military control.

The Abu Dahuk clan has explained that it arrived in the area of Khan al-Ahmar in the early 1950s after Israel expelled it from the Negev.