Editorials on Levy Report

Summary of Editorials from the Hebrew Press

(Israel Government Press Office)

Four newspapers papers discuss retired Supreme Court Judge Edmund Levy’s report on the legal status of settlement outposts in Judea and Samaria:

\the Jerusalem Post welcomes the report, which it believes defines the legal status of Judea and Samaria, and states that “Far from ‘occupied,’ the status of Judea and Samaria – if one is being generous with regard to Palestinian demands – can at best be described as sui generis.” The editor notes that while the committee “might not succeed in convincing Israel’s detractors that settlements are legal and the men, women and children who populate them are law-abiding citizens by any criterion,” he nevertheless feels that “the plain truth has now been reiterated – for the record. And it should be officially recognized as such by the government.”

Haaretz argues that the report effectively annexes the territories conquered in the Six-Day War to the State of Israel by recommending that all Israeli outposts be sanctioned, and asserts: “Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, who opposed the creation of Levy’s committee, has a responsibility to explain to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the profound international law implications of adopting the report’s recommendations. Netanyahu must shelve the report and insist that the executive branch of his government enforce, without delay, the judicial orders regarding all of the outposts, starting with those built on private land.”

Yisrael Hayom says, “Whoever told Talia Sason, a former Meretz Knesset candidate, to write a report on outposts in Judea and Samaria, invited in advance a recommendation to wipe them off the face of the earth; and whoever later told a committee headed by Edmund Levy to summarize the settlements issue, invited in advance a recommendation to wipe the Sason report off the face of the earth.” The author suggests that “both the Right and the extreme Left would like to see the Government adopt the Levy committee report,” and adds: “If Israel was to stop defining itself as bound by various international treaties and the rule of law, global pressure on it would increase to unprecedented dimensions. The Right wouldn’t care. The Left yearns for outside pressure.”

Yediot Aharonot also notes that the Levy committee report contravenes the Sason report and asserts that “Legal analysis is not an exact science. It is possible to err and to think again. And wonder of wonders, there is no absolute legal truth even when it comes to the territories over the Green Line.” The author wonders how Israel’s critics would explain “that the rule of law requires warmly adopting Talia Sason’s report on the one hand while ignoring Levy’s on the other.”

July 10, 2012 | 3 Comments »

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  1. Israel’s Left has never cared about the rule of law. The editorial in the treasonous Haaretz tells one all we need to know.

    For them, its a question of politics – not of right and wrong. Israel’s government should move to adopt the Levy Report without delay.

  2. I think I see now, why the Jews have been independent and sovereign for so little of their history. They’re their own worst enemy!

  3. In short,

    “Yes, there is no agreement”. Because, among other reasons, journalism as a science is even more inexact than interpretation of law.

    HaAretz always finds a way to toss the rights of the Jewish nation and Jewish state to the dogs, while the same dogs of the international haters of Jews, if they had their way, would eliminate the State of Israel from the maps of the world; and along with that, the Hebrew-speaking readership of HaAretz. But of course the leftist liberals never think of the ultimate unintended consequences of their political correct national suicide in the name of One World.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI