The Middle East Ticker

In a 233-page blockbuster decision, Uri Avnery v. Israeli Knesset, an expanded 9-justice panel of the Israeli Supreme Court issued a split ruling on a controversial 2011 law restricting political boycotts aimed at the State of Israel. In recent years, frustrated opponents of Israel and Israeli policy have increasingly turned to economic and cultural boycotts. Support for these boycotts in some parts of the Israeli extreme Left, however, triggered a legislative backlash. In 2011, the Israeli Parliament passed a law denying government benefits to, and allowing lawsuits against, NGOs advocating anti-Israel boycotts. The Supreme Court issued a temporary suspension in implementation of the law until last week when it rendered a full verdict: The Court struck down provisions of the law allowing for punitive damages, but approved the benefit denials and the possibility of lawsuits where actual damages can be proved---albeit while imposing what may be an impossibly high burden of proof. In the most contentious part of the verdict, a bare majority of the panel allowed the application of the law not just to boycotts targeting pre-1967 Israel, but also to those targeting the territories captured from Jordan in the Six-Day War. Also last week, in Daoud Hattav Hassin v. Shaul Cohen,  a 7-justice panel of the Israeli Supreme Court approved---but only in principle---the application of Israel’s controversial “absentee property law” to East Jerusalem. The 1948-era law allows for the confiscation of property abandoned by those who moved into territory outside of Israeli sovereignty. The law’s application to property abandoned in East Jerusalem, which only was only subjected to Israeli sovereignty in 1967, has been hotly debated for decades. Last week, the Court ruled that in a formal sense, the law clearly applies to East Jerusalem, but that the widespread implementation of the law could lead to absurd results and so must be restricted. As such, going forward, implementation of the law will only be permitted  with prospective approval from both the Attorney General and the relevant ministerial committee. Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for inciting violence that led to the deaths of ten people during clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters outside the Ittihadiya presidential palace in December 2012. Fourteen other defendants, including leading Muslim Brotherhood members Mohamed El-Beltagy and Essam El-Erian, and ex-presidential aides, also received 20-year sentences on the same charge. Ali Gamal Saber and Abdel-Hakim Abdel-Rahman received 10-year sentences. However, Morsi and the other 14 defendants were acquitted of the more serious charge of premeditated murder. This is the first verdict issued against Morsi since his ouster in July 2013. Morsi and his supporters do not recognize the court and consider the verdict “null.” (April 21) Army chiefs from Arab League nations met in Cairo on Wednesday to begin work on the creation of a regional military force whose mission will be “to fight terrorism and maintain security, peace and stability in the region,” according to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi. As AFP reports, the Arab League “agreed in March to set up the force, with member states given four months to hammer out the details over its composition and precise rules of engagement.” In a televised speech, Mahmoud Hegazy, chief of staff of the Egyptian military, stated that “it has been proven beyond doubt” that “unilateral confrontation” by states’ armed forces is “insufficient” in many cases and that this has created a collective need for a regional force that can carry out rapid intervention when necessary. (April 22) Senior al-Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauritani was sentenced to 20 years in jail in a closed-door hearing in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on Monday, April 20, according to an unnamed judicial source. Mauritani was arrested in Pakistan in 2011 along with two other senior al Qaeda leaders in a joint operation by U.S. and Pakistani spy agencies. Al-Mauritani was held at the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, until 2013, when U.S. officials handed him over to the Mauritanian authorities. At the time of his arrest in 2011, Pakistani military officials stated that Mauritani had been instructed by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to focus on economic targets in the United States, Europe, and Australia, including oil pipelines, hydroelectric dams, and oil tankers.