Israel’s High Court ordered June 9 the state to cancel the controversial Regulation Law, with eight justices to one ruling that the legislation was unconstitutional. The eight justices said that the law “violates the property rights and equality of Palestinians, and gives clear priority to the interests of Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents of the West Bank." The justices argued that while preventing the demolition of [settlement] homes might be understandable, this “does not justify such significant violation of property rights and the rights to dignity and equality that the Palestinian population [deserves].”
The Regulation Law enables the Israeli authorities to expropriate private lands belonging to Palestinians in favor of Jewish settlements and on the condition of compensating the Palestinian owners. Its authors aimed at retroactively legalizing over 4,000 unauthorized housing units, including some, though not all, West Bank wildcat outpost.