Jerusalem District Court Justice Moshe Drori used stern language in his criticism of the state in the handling of the case against Chevron resident Noam Federman, whose home was recently destroyed in the dark of night, without any previous warning, leaving him, his wife and their nine children without shelter.

In the state’s latest move, the court was presented with a request to ban Federman from all areas of Yehuda and Shomron, based on charges against him of assaulting an officer, stemming from the night during which security forces woke the Federmans up and moved in with bulldozers and destroyed their home. Federman was also beaten and bruised during the ordeal.

Justice Drori rejected the request, decrying the destruction of the home, calling the action of authorities a “violation of international law”. He went on to call the attempt to prevent Federman from entering Yehuda and Shomron nothing more than discrimination, calling on the state to justify such a harsh move based on a possible assault charge against the suspect.

Determined in his mission to remove Jews from Chevron, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has already ordered the state to appeal; realizing the Supreme Court generally adopts a more libertarian leftist approach and generally is less sympathetic to Chevron’s Jewish community. It should also be pointed out that the lower court, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, also rejected the state’s appeal, prompting the petition to the district court level.

Justice Drori, who sports a kippa sruga and a graduate of Netiv Meir High School, went on to draw an analogy from the parsha, explaining how Hashem decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorra, explaining that there, the sins of the people were far far greater but nevertheless, Hashem permitted Avraham to plead on their behalf. Drori also questioned police how they would respond after being dragged out of bed at 1:30am, without warning, compounding his criticism by stating to date, he has not seen photos of filmed evidence documenting any assault against police by Federman.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)