Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Thursday that the defense establishment is under intense legal pressure to harm the communities in Judea and Samaria.
"At present, a war of legal attrition is being waged by international bodies funded by other international elements, including European countries. The defense establishment is dealing at present with 260 High Court petitions: 110 against the Jewish communities and 150 more by Palestinians against the State of Israel. This harms the regular routine work of the legal department in the Defense Ministry as well as harming the Ministry itself. We are not equipped for this, we don't have the resources or manpower for this."
"It is clear that most of the petitions are designed to harass and to badger the system. Its time to reach some dialogue with the High Court, since it cannot be that anyone can present a petition and immediately have a hearing. The defense establishment cannot deal with 260 petitions simultaneously," said Liberman at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Liberman referred to the situation on the Northern border and said that "Israel has no interest in getting involved in the civil war in Syria. However, we will not allow any attacks on Israeli citizens, we will not allow any breach of Israel's sovereignty and we will not allow high grade weapons or chemical weapons to be smuggled from Lebanon into Syria for use by the Hezbollah."
He added that Israel freely makes decisions in accordance with its own policy, and is not constrained by other elements.
"We have many more challenges than in the past. I will not detail them here but the challenges the State of Israel faces are not simple. We are facing totally new challenges and we need to be prepared for those we did not know about beforehand."