“A strategically important decision” was how Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked categorized the Aug. 28 decision by Jerusalem District Court Judge Arnon Darel. The court barred the Israel Defense Forces from evacuating several homes at the West Bank settlement of Mitzpe Kramim, even though these houses were built on private Palestinian lands, thus legalizing the outpost. Darel ruled that under Israeli law, even legally questionable transactions could be valid if conducted in "good faith," accepting the argument by the settlers and the state that when the land was allocated to build Mitzpe Kramim in the late 1990s, neither of them was aware that it was private.

“Working together intensively we have wrought a change in the state’s policy,” Shaked said, patting herself on the back and praising Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit for overturning his predecessor’s stand on the issue.

Despite Shaked’s satisfaction with the precedent-setting decision, she also knows that the Supreme Court could strike down the lower court’s ruling on appeal and instruct the state to restore the outpost’s lands to their (Palestinian) owners. The justice minister has surely considered the possibility that the “good faith” excuse would not sway the top court’s justices when they weigh the landowners’ heartbreak.

Nonetheless, she spelled out the cause of her pleasure with the message she conveyed in the wake of the ruling to the Supreme Court (apparently addressing the Supreme Court justices). “The injustice done in the evacuations of the Amona and Netiv Ha’avot [outposts] should not be repeated,” Shaked said, referring to the Supreme Court’s rulings in recent years ordering the evacuation of two outposts built on private Palestinian lands. The District Court, as she sees it, righted those wrongs when it “clearly stated that whoever settled [the land] with the state’s approval and in good faith, would not be evicted,” in her words.