Mandelblit
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Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit intends to submit a legal formula that would enable the normalization in status of 80% of cases whose status is currently in doubt without the need for the Regulation Law, Yediot Aharonot reported this morning, Sunday.

Last week,Arutz Sheva reported that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit recently gave the go-ahead to a mammoth legal effort by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked that aims to legalize thousands of homes in Judea and Samaria.

The initiative will normalize the status of thousands of homes which have been in legal limbo for years. The legal opinion was signed after three years of intensive labor by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Mandelblit and Deputy Legal Advisor Erez Kaminitz.

The Regulation Law would allow the state to confiscate land use rights from alleged Arab landowners in Judea and Samaria, while compensating them an amount higher than the value of the land, and allotting the rights to use the land to those Jewish communities which are already on the land. While the law was approved, it has been stuck in limbo pending a Supreme Court decision on it, following several petitions to the court against it. AG Mandelblit has indicated his opposition to the law and his refusal to defend it in the Supreme Court.

According to the new report, the solution formulated by Mandelblit is based on the "Market Overt" clause, also known as "Article 5." This section states that "a transaction made in good faith between the Custodian of government property in Judea and Samaria and another person, for any property which the Custodian thought at the time of the transaction to be government property, shall be valid even if in practice the land in question did not belong to the State."

"The implementation of Article 5 constitutes a significant component of the policy of the Israeli government to normalize illegal construction in Judea and Samaria which was established in good faith and with the involvement of the state authorities," wrote the attorney general’s assistant, Gil Limon, in the opinion. “Therefore, there is room for the relevant government ministries to take proactive action to advance the steps necessary to implement the article. This initiated action should include an appropriate working plan and the allocation of the required resources."

This move by the attorney general may make today’s discussion of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on the joint legislative initiative of MKs Kish (Likud) and Smotrich (Jewish Home), who head the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus, for the provision of civil services to those communities that the Attorney General's formula speaks of as long as the process of normalizing them has not been completed, extraneous. Following Mandelbit's move, the discussion may no longer be necessary.