The entire occupation in 140 characters

Noam Sheizaf By Noam Sheizaf June 1, 2011 | Edit

Professor Aeyal Gross (who occasionally writes op-eds for this site) posted on his Facebook page a quote I found worth sharing.

First, some context: In 1978, Taufic Ayoub, a Palestinian who had his land near Ramallah confiscated by the IDF “for security reasons,” learned of the intention to establish on his property not a military camp, but a civilian settlement for Jews.

These were the early days of the settlement project, and it wasn’t that clear where things were heading. So Ayoub (and other land owners) filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, claiming that land that was taken for temporary military purpose by the occupation authorities could not be used for permanent civilian projects.

The court ruled against the Palestinians. Justice Miriam Ben-Porat, later Israel’s State Comptroller, wrote (art. D):

“I was troubled by the question whether the term ‘permanent’ settlement indicates an intention to deny the land forever, but I have reached the conclusion that the adjective ‘permanent’ should be seen as a relative concept.”

“Ben-Porat sums up the entire legal pretext for the occupation in 141 Hebrew characters,” wrote Prof. Gross. “I guess that today she would have agreed to settle for 140, for Twitter.”

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Noam Sheizaf

Noam Sheizaf is an independent journalist and editor. He was the founding executive director and editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine. Prior to joining +972, he worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, Ynet, and the Maariv daily, where his last position was deputy editor of the weekend magazine. He is currently working on a number of documentary films.

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