Hearing on Hebron's disputed 'Beit Hashalom' to take place in court today

By DAN IZENBERG
The High Court of Justice is due on Wednesday to hold its first hearing on the dispute over a building in a Palestinian neighborhood of Hebron moved into more than a year-and-half ago by Jewish settlers who say they bought it from its Palestinian owner, Faez Rajbi. The state, based on a police criminal forensic report, is arguing that the settlers did not purchase the building they call Beit Hashalom and that the documents they produced to prove they did were forged. On the eve of the Wednesday's hearing, the Jewish company that claims it bought the building through a Palestinian straw agent filed a brief containing an opinion by a private forensic expert hired by it who wrote that the police conclusions were mistaken. The expert, Dr. Mordechai Vardi, wrote that the various signatures of the seller were so blatantly unlike one another and so inconsistent in style that they could only have been "auto forgeries," that is, signatures that so obviously looked forged that they must have been deliberately written to create the impression that they were forged. According to Vardi, the Palestinian owner made these auto forgeries so that he could later claim he had never signed the documents in the first place and that someone must have forged his signature. Vardi also wrote that the police had authenticated Rajbi's signature on receipts connected to the alleged purchase and signed between March 2004 and March 2005. Rajbi had at first told police he had sold the house but had immediately changed his mind and canceled the sale in March 2004. Vardi also said that the police forensic investigation had been conducted unprofessionally. For example, the police hadn't used Rajbi's signature on the original purchase agreement, which the police acknowledged to have been genuine, as the base for comparing all his other signatures to determine whether they were genuine. The state, in its response, did not enter into a dispute with Vardi's findings. Instead, it argued that the court should not choose between the state's opinion, based on the police findings, and those of the expert hired by the petitioners. "The decision to evacuate the petitioners on the grounds that the takeover of the building constituted a 'fresh takeover' is an administrative decision based on very weighty evidence. There is no reason [for the court] to intervene," the state said. Immediately after the settlers occupied the building in March 2007, Rajbi petitioned the High Court, demanding that the state evict the alleged trespassers according to the procedure for "fresh takeovers." At first, police told the court Rajbi had lied and that he had indeed actually sold it. In the meantime, then-defense minister Amir Peretz ordered the settlers to be evicted in accordance with an order issued by the West Bank military commander. The settlers appealed the eviction order and that trial is still pending in military court. Meanwhile, the police changed its mind and declared that the settlers had forged the documents proving they had bought the building and that in fact it still belonged to Rajbi. The settlers then petitioned the High Court against the government's decision to evict the settlers according to the "fresh takeover" law. The last time the High Court met to discuss the petition was in January 2008. It decided to postpone the hearing until the military court ruled on the settlers' appeal, because if the court were to have rejected the appeal, the settlers would have been evicted according to the military law and the High Court petition would have become irrelevant. However, almost 10 months later, the military appeals court has still not ruled on the appeal. The state on Tuesday urged the court to wait no longer and to reject the petition, so that it could finally enforce its eviction order.