State backs Galant on ‘misuse of land’ at his moshav

The petitioners argued that Turkel Committee’s approval of Galant’s nomination was flawed because was based on incomplete evidence.

By DAN IZENBERG
Yoav Galant 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Yoav Galant 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The state on Thursday asked the High Court of Justice to reject a petition filed by the Green Party against the appointment of Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant as the next army chief-of-staff and against the decision of a vetting committee headed by retired Supreme Court justice Jacob Turkel that approved his nomination to the position by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
The petitioners argued that the Turkel Committee’s approval of Galant’s nomination was flawed because it was based on incomplete evidence.
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Opponents of the nomination told the committee that Galant had been involved in improper activities involving three land affairs on his moshav, Amikam. In the first, he cut a road without permission through a public open space to reach his home. He also prepared a parking lot for his car on the same land. Second, Galant planted an orchard on 28 dunams (2.8 hectares) of agricultural land that did not belong to him. Finally, he allegedly extended his private garden on adjacent public open space.
According to the Attorney-General’s Office, which conducted an investigation of the complaints, the authorities ordered Galant to relinquish control of the land he had taken over in the first two cases. The investigation of the third had not yet been completed.
Despite these findings, the Turkel Committee approved Galant’s nomination.
In the state’s response, attorney Einav Golomb wrote that the decision “was made in accordance with the law, with the approval of those authorized to decide, and is a reasonable decision that gives no legal cause for the intervention of the court.”
Golomb argued that according to court rulings, only in the most exceptional and extreme cases may the court intervene, and this was not one of them.