Holy Land: Supreme Court issues 'positive but non-definitive' answer on Cremisan

Weekly Mass in Cremisan Valley's threatened olive groves

Israel’s Supreme Court issued its decision about the route of the Separation Wall in the Cremisan Valley on 11 August. After a hearing on 4 August, the Court reviewed the proposed routes of the Wall, which threaten to confiscate lands and vineyards of the Christian monastery and separate the religious community of the fathers and the sisters.

The Court decided that it is now up to Israel, as a defendant, to take into account different options for the route of the wall, allowing two Salesian convents to remain on the Palestinian side. The Court has given Israel until 4 September 2014 to give a response. The Court’s reply is therefore not yet definitive.

Counsel for the Saint Yves Society (a Catholic human rights organization working under the patronage of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem) Zvi Avni, representative of the monastery of the Salesian Sisters, explained: “the case is not yet complete, and a final decision has not yet been given. However, the decision of the Court is an indicator of the interest that the Court shows in a matter concerning religious freedom and freedom of religion regarding monasteries.”

The Cremisan Valley will be closed to the inhabitants of the region if the Separation Wall is built according to current Israeli plans. 58 Palestinian families will be dispersed and the Sisters’ convent will be cut off from the Priests. Families will lose their land, and the convent of the sisters, who run a school for children, will be located in a military zone cut off from the monastery.

Associations of International Law have condemned the construction of the wall along a route that passed through the middle of Palestinian homes and land, separating families, and isolating them from their farmland. The wall will make it difficult to access the Sisters’ school, and once annexed to Jerusalem, impossible to access the monastery of fathers who have lived in Beit Jala since the 19th century and enjoyed historical relations and reciprocal friendship, brotherhood and solidarity with the people of the mainly Christian town.

The International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion on 9 July 2004, that building the Separation Wall was illegal.

Source: Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem