(If you attempted unsuccessfully to link to "Deception" from the APN Weekly Update, it can be seen at: http://www.peacenow.org/updates.asp?rid=0&cid=333)

As an attorney, it's a source of professional pride to see a fellow advocate take on a difficult issue to help improve the lives of people who are being wronged. And as a Zionist, it's particularly satisfying to watch an Israeli lawyer stand up for the high ideals of the Jewish state. So I was doubly pleased to watch Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz tackle the Israeli government's secret decision to apply the 1950 Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, which would have allowed Israel to seize millions of dollars worth of property belonging to Palestinian landowners without recourse or compensation. Mazuz's action underscored why Israel's robust legal system is a vital part of its democracy, offering an important restraint on overreaching politicians who may not be sufficiently concerned about the broad ramifications of their choices.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, which broke this story, under the Absentee Property Law, every person who was outside of Israeli territory between November 29, 1947 and September 1, 1948 was considered an "absentee," and his or her assets were transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property. From there, through another law, the property was passed along so that the assets left behind by Palestinian refugees in 1948 and even some Palestinians who became citizens of Israel were "transferred" to the state. Although this law was used during the early days of Israel's independence, successive Israeli governments, both Likud and Labor, had declined to apply it to East Jerusalem after that part of the city was captured during the Six Day War.

In addressing the question of whether or not this law should be used in East Jerusalem, former Israeli Attorney General Meir Shamgar ruled in 1968 that "since the property was not absentee property when the (Israeli) army entered East Jerusalem, and would not have turned into absentee property if East Jerusalem had continued to be part of Judea and Samaria, we did not see any justification for the annexation of Jerusalem resulting in taking away property from someone who was not actually absent."

The basic logic and fairness of Shamgar's reasoning more or less went unchallenged for many years. Palestinians in the West Bank who owned East Jerusalem property continued to live in the area and close to their possessions, farming their land, using their buildings, and paying taxes to the Jerusalem Municipality.

Then last summer, Israeli cabinet ministers Natan Sharansky and Zevulun Orlev, acting as members of the Ministerial Committee on Jerusalem, surreptitiously authorized the application of the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, over the objections of two Justice Ministry officials. These ministers failed to consult with the Attorney General about their move, which became an official government decision when no other ministers challenged it.

When the law started to be applied, Jerusalem attorney Danny Seidemann and others began to raise legal objections to this decision because of its impact on their clients in the West Bank. In the U.S, groups like Americans for Peace Now weighed in with the Bush Administration to press the Israeli government to reverse its decision. To the credit of the Administration, it raised concerns about this new application of the absentee law in high-level meetings with Israeli officials. Soon thereafter, Mazuz weighed in and reversed the earlier government decision.

Mazuz moved quickly to halt the application of the law, writing, "This decision cannot stand." He pointed out that interpretation of the law was beyond the authority of the Ministerial Committee on Jerusalem, that the decision would have denied people their property even though they were really present, and that the result would have been unfair to West Bank property owners. Further, since the Sharansky-Orlev decision seems to have been related to the taking of property to build the security barrier in Jerusalem, Mazuz expressed concern that "grave international ramifications" could arise from the change. In short, Mazuz returned to the logic of Shamgar's original ruling.

This course of events may have been tortuous, but the end result was that, in this case at least, the system worked and injustice was averted. In the face of cabinet ministers cutting backroom deals to subvert the rights of the weak and deprive them of their property, Attorney General Mazuz stood firm for basic fairness, Jewish values, and Israeli self-interest. Coupled with last year's High Court of Justice ruling on the need to adjust the route of the separation barrier to take into account the humanitarian needs of Palestinians, as well as Israeli security requirements, Israelis and Diaspora Jews have good reason to take pride in the Israeli judicial system-even if they're not attorneys.

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Luis Lainer is Chair of Americans for Peace Now.