Court Moves to Save Gaza Synagogues

Hoping to prevent the Israeli government from demolishing synagogues in recently abandoned settlements of the Gaza Strip, the nation’s Supreme Court on Tuesday directed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to ask Palestinian officials to safeguard the buildings.

The court is weighing an appeal that argues that Israel would violate Jewish values and set a dangerous precedent by demolishing the synagogues, as called for under the government’s plan to withdraw from Gaza and part of the West Bank. Israel completed its removal of nearly 9,000 settlers from those areas two weeks ago and since then has demolished all private homes.

The government’s plan calls for razing more than two dozen synagogues to prevent them from being turned into platforms for celebratory displays by Palestinian militant groups. Officials decided to remove usable items and to transport to Israel two mobile homes that had served as synagogues.

A three-judge panel of the high court initially sided with the government decision, but the matter was appealed to a larger group of seven justices. The appeal picked up steam after religious authorities ruled late last month that the demolition would violate Jewish law.

On Tuesday, the larger panel said it wanted the Israeli government to ask the Palestinian Authority or international community to safeguard the buildings.

Gilad Corinaldi, an attorney for the petitioners, including the rabbi for three former settlements in the northern Gaza Strip, said the court directive improved chances that some arrangement would allow the synagogues to remain standing.

“We’re very optimistic. I suggest to Mr. Sharon to hear the voice [of] the high court,” Corinaldi said in an interview.

Critics of the planned demolitions argue that by carrying them out, Israel would send a signal to regimes elsewhere that it is acceptable to destroy synagogues. Representatives of the Israeli chief rabbinate’s council, which rules on matters of Jewish law, said it would be better to allow the synagogues to be destroyed by vandals than leveled by Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli government has already rejected as unworkable the idea of Palestinians providing security, saying the Palestinian Authority had already turned down an earlier request to do so.

The fate of the synagogues is one of the final issues to be worked out before Israel clears its remaining troops from Gaza. Israel plans to turn over the former settlements around Sept. 15.

Negotiators are haggling over how much control Israel will keep over border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which soon is to begin patrols on its side.

Israel wants to oversee the passage of goods and people into Gaza from Egypt by opening a new terminal where the borders of Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip meet. Israeli officials say they view such an arrangement as temporary, lasting until it is clear whether Palestinian forces can prevent militants and weapons from entering Gaza.

Israel would turn over an existing crossing at the Gaza city of Rafah that could be used for people and goods leaving Gaza.

Palestinian officials say Israel should cede border control after the pullout. They have proposed using Rafah for crossings in both directions and to have a third party monitor the passage of people and merchandise during a transition period.

In other developments, Israeli soldiers fatally shot a Palestinian and wounded at least three others after a crowd of Palestinians forced its way into a buffer area near the evacuated Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim, witnesses and medical officials said.

It was the first violent confrontation since the pullout between Palestinians and the Israeli soldiers who have stayed in the abandoned settlements.

An estimated 100 people, mostly youths, pushed past Palestinian police and cut through a fence surrounding the former settlement block known as Gush Katif. Several dozen youths clambered onto an Israeli tank, an Israeli military spokeswoman said, and soldiers opened fire.

Also Tuesday, Israeli officials said the construction of 117 units was approved in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, but they denied reports that 3,000 were to be built there.

“It’s nonsense. It’s completely nonsense,” said a senior Israeli official, who briefed foreign reporters under ground rules that barred naming him.

The official said 117 units approved by the Defense Ministry would be contained in three buildings within built-up areas of Ariel, home to about 18,000 people.

Settlement activity has been a sticking point between Israel and the Bush administration, which has urged against new building. Israel is to freeze its settlement activity under the U.S.-backed peace blueprint known as the road map. But it has insisted on its right to add housing in areas that are already built up, in order to accommodate a growing population.

Palestinians complain that settlement expansion threatens a two-state solution by carving up areas they seek for an independent Palestinian state.