Supreme Court Rules Hebron’s ‘Peace House’ Belongs to Jews

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: March 11th, 2014

Police manhandle a youth in expulsion from the Hebron Peace house in December 2008.

Photo Credit: Flash 90

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the “Peace House” in Hebron, where Jews were violently expelled more than five years ago, was legally bought by Jews, but it is up to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to decide if they can return to their home.

The decision ends a six-year legal and political battle in which Palestinian Authority Arabs, Peace Now and other leftists, then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the government prosecutor bent truth out of shape and employed goon squads to violently evict the Jews.

The four-story building’s original owner, Fiaz Rejbi, claimed that he had canceled a deal with a “straw man” who acted as intermediary to sell the Peace House to Jews for $1 million. It was not true but he spoke out of common sense, because the Arab version of democracy and freedom decrees that selling property to a lowly Jew, and even worse a Zionist, is a sin punishable by death.

He chose “life” over “money.” Now that he has acted out his part, the “new” Supreme Court, which thank God is without the presence of liberal dictators such as Aharon Barak and Dorit Benesch, rejected his claims and said all the Jews have to do is fork over a final payment of $300,000 and the building is theirs.

Almost.

Possession may be 90 percent of the law, but in Israel, the other 10 percent rules because it belongs to the Defense Minister if the property is located in Judea and Samaria, officially under military control. No Jew can move into a house in Judea and Samaria without his approval.

Barak, when he was Defense Minster, used that power like a tyrant, cruelly locking Jews out of houses they had built, often with their owns hands and with government approval.

Ya’alon sentiments clearly are with common sense and with a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, but the man also is a politician. Peace House has been sealed since the expulsion, and he knows U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, whom he once correctly labeled ignorant of the Middle East, will jump on him for ruining his already-ruined Peace Talks Follies by allowing more Jews to move into Hebron.

Following Tuesday’s court ruling, the nationalists and leftists got a hold of the nearest microphone to call on him to act according to their agendas.

Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer accepted the decision but called on Ya’alon not to allow those terrible settlers to enter the home they paid for because doing so would have great "significance for security and polices.” The problem with security is that Arabs will protest, and the police will have to defend Jews against Arabs, not their favorite job.

Obvious to them, the Supreme Court is a Zionist plot, especially since the court president, Asher Grunis, is from Gush Etzion, and never mind the times that Grunis has ruled against settlers.

The significance for “policies” is even worse for Peace Now. Every Jewish settler is proof that Israel exists beyond the suburbs east of Tel Aviv.

The court ruled in 2008 that no one could live in the Peace House until their property ownership is proven one way or the other, and it ordered the Jews to be expelled.

The Olmert administration promised the Jews holed up in the Peace House that it would negotiate with them and not bring in the police without prior notice, Barak, true to his character, did exactly what he promised not to do. Hundreds of policemen stormed the Peace House and violently hauled away the Jews, another bloody and sordid expulsion carried out by a Jewish government.

Jewish Home Knesset Member Orit Struck commented after Tuesday’s ruling that the episode “is one of the most shocking proofs of the capriciousness of the government prosecutor who chose to believer the Arab version.” She added, “After five years, the truth has come to light."

Struck and her party colleague, Housing Minister Uri Ariel, called on Ya’alon to act without delay to allow the Jews to re-enter their home, where several dozen families can live comfortably. He said that the court ruling “finally proves that the Peace House belongs to Jews and that the violent expulsion that was forced by Olmert and Barak was totally unnecessary.”