Justice David Mintz
Justice David MintzFlash 90

Adi Mintz, a former member of the Yesha Council, welcomed his friend Justice David Mintz, who was one of four new justices selected for the Supreme Court yesterday, to the town of Dolev in Samaria on Thursday.

Despite sharing the same last name, the two men have no relation to each other.

Adi described Justice Mintz as "professional and exact".

"He is a man who does not do anything that is not planned or that is inadvertent. It is all self-control, and it is impossible to label him. He is a genius and he never stops studying - both religious studies and law. He earned both a masters degree and a doctorate while working as a judge. He provides lessons for our Talmud study group. He is a very worthy [choice]."

Adi praised Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked for her work in getting Justice Mintz and three other candidates appointed to the Supreme Court, seen as friendlier towards the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria than the judges they are replacing.

He said that the Supreme Court has dealt wrongly with Judea and Samaria, considering it under "belligerent occupation," instead of "disputed" or "administered territories" and that he hoped that the new appointees would continue the work of late former Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy, who argued in The Levy Report that the laws of occupation do not apply to Judea and Samaria. The only occupier of Judea and Samaria was Jordan from 1949 to 1967.

"The Israeli government recognized the territories in Judea and Samaria as 'administered territories' until the 1990s, and it was only in the 90s that the terminology began to change and the territories in Judea and Samaria were referred to as 'occupied territories,' taking a cue from the left. If the area is defined as "occupied territory" then the Geneva Conventions apply, the Arab residents become protected persons and it is forbidden to expropriate land from them. It is also forbidden to transfer the [occupying power's] population to those areas. That is how the 'settlers' came to be vilified and lowered in status," Adi explained.