The Jerusalem District Court once again declined this past week to confront one of the most flagrant and long-running violations of Israeli law: the illegal outpost known as Khan al-Ahmar. In rejecting Regavim’s seventh petition demanding enforcement of standing demolition orders, the court invoked a familiar refrain: “The judiciary does not interfere in the discretion of the authorities.”
In theory, this principle reflects one of the most basic tenets of democratic government: the separation of powers. In practice, it has become a convenient shield behind which unlawful facts on the ground have become entrenched, year after year, changing the map and undermining the equally basic principles of the rule of law, equal and universal enforcement, and the responsibility of the state to protect national resources and the safety and security of its citizens.
Regavim’s most recent petition in the matter of Khan al-Ahmar did not ask the court to formulate policy or dictate diplomatic strategy. It asked something far more basic: that the state enforce its own final and binding demolition orders against illegal construction on state land. These orders were issued years ago; the illegality of the structures that comprise the now-famous outpost in the Adumim region has never been disputed. The government has repeatedly given legally binding commitments to enforce the law and has made countless public declarations of its intention to do so, yet enforcement has been endlessly deferred.
The state’s response to the court this week only deepened the absurdity. The prosecution informed the judges that the “most senior political echelon” insists that the law must be enforced at Khan al-Ahmar, but refused to provide any timetable, benchmarks or concrete steps toward implementation. In other words: strong words, zero accountability.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new modus operandi. For nearly two decades, the state has offered the courts a veritable smorgasbord of excuses, including security challenges, diplomatic considerations, regional instability—all while the illegal outpost continues to expand. Indeed, Regavim’s most recent petition documented new illegal structures built at the site, in flagrant violation of repeated High Court decisions.
The timing of last week’s decision makes the court’s deference even harder to justify. Only a few short weeks ago, the state requested an extension of the deadline to submit its response to Regavim’s petition, claiming that “urgent matters,” including Prime Minister Benjamin Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, should be taken into consideration. The implication was unmistakable—enforcement of Israeli law in Area C is subordinate to diplomatic optics. When foreign meetings delay domestic law enforcement, sovereignty itself is reduced to a bargaining chip.
Judge Tamar Bar-Asher’s decision offered no demand for timelines, no requirement for progress reports and no consequences for continued inaction. The result is a legal vacuum in which executive discretion becomes indistinguishable from executive paralysis—and the judiciary, by declining to intervene, becomes an enabler rather than an upholder of checks and balances.
Khan al-Ahmar is not merely a cluster of illegal structures. It has become a symbol of a broader campaign, driven by the Palestinian Authority and supported by foreign actors, to create irreversible facts on the ground through strategic illegal construction. Every passing day, every year that goes by without enforcement, encourages and affirms this strategy. Every unenforced judicial order sends a message that persistence is stronger than the rule of law.
If final court rulings can be ignored indefinitely under the guise of “discretion,” then the rule of law itself becomes conditional—applied selectively, suspended indefinitely and ultimately stripped of meaning.
Israel has taken unprecedented and historic decisions in recent years to secure its future and to restore Zionism to its natural place in our national policy. Those decisions must be measured not by declarations, but by actions. The moment of truth has arrived. Separation of powers was never meant to excuse lawlessness. It was meant to prevent it.
