The High Court of Justice heard two petitions on Wednesday which asked
for court intervention to prevent the West Bank fence from being built
in a way that could destroy the shared Palestinian-Israeli Battir
cultural landscape site and an ancient Bar Kochba stronghold.
The
emergency petitions were filed recently by Friends of the Earth's
Middle East (FOEME) division and the village council of Battir.
In
an unprecedented development, the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority
took FOEME's side against the IDF and the rest of the government.
That
"defection" framed the debate and made it much more difficult for the
state to make arguments for the wall beyond security concerns.
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