{"id":6910,"date":"2016-06-23T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T07:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/?p=6910"},"modified":"2016-06-23T10:52:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T07:52:30","slug":"settler-group-asks-court-cover-ties-government-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/t6910\/settler-group-asks-court-cover-ties-government-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Settler Group Asks Court to Cover Up Its Ties to Government Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

The right-wing NGO Elad has petitioned the High Court of Justice to prevent the disclosure of the group\u2019s contacts with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the ministry\u2019s director general Emi Palmor. The information is expected to shed light on how an Elad project was approved.
\nThe left wing NGO Ir Amim submitted a freedom of information request a few weeks ago about the ties between Elad and top Justice Ministry officials. The move followed Palmor\u2019s intervention in favor of a large Elad building project in Jerusalem\u2019s Silwan neighborhood, a formerly all-Arab neighborhood where right-wing Jewish activists have settled
\nElad has been advancing construction of the Kedem compound, a large visitors center at the entrance to the Ir David National Park, which it manages. About a year ago the National Planning Council\u2019s appeals committee ordered Elad to reduce the size of the planned building from 16,000 square meters to 10,000.<\/p>\n

Elad petitioned the court against the decision to downsize the building, claiming one of the appeal committee\u2019s members, Yaron Turel, was involved in a conflict of interests. Elad said that when Turel once signed a petition against building in the settlements. The Jerusalem District court rejected the petition and charged the NGO court expenses.
\nAfter this failure by Elad, a member of the National Planning Council \u2013 Amit Sofer, the representative of the local councils and head of the Regional Council Merom Hagalil \u2013 submitted a request for another discussion of the issue at the council.
\nWhile such requests are generally denied out of hand, in this case Palmor replaced the ministry\u2019s representative at the council, who supported reducing the Elad building\u2019s size, and came herself to the meeting at Sofer\u2019s request, which was approved. When the council discussed the project at a later date it overturned the appeals committee\u2019s decision and restored the building to its original size.<\/p>\n

Ir Amim submitted a freedom of information request to the Justice Ministry, asking who had approached Shaked or the ministry about Elad\u2019s plan. It also asked if Shaked or senior ministry officials had met any person or official associated with the plan, and if so, what had been said at those meetings.
\nThe ministry said Ir Amim\u2019s request pertains to details about a third party, who could be harmed by their disclosure \u201cso we are asking him for his position.\u201d The third party is the plan\u2019s entrepreneur, Elad, which was told about Ir Amim\u2019s freedom of information request.
\nThe Justice Ministry denied Elad\u2019s request not to disclose any information to Ir Amim and earlier this week the ministry told Ir Amim that the \u201cthird party\u201d had petitioned against releasing the information. Ir Amim said in response, \u201cWhile the justice minister is pushing the NGOs bill, intended to persecute human rights groups acting transparently for the public, the right wing NGOs, which are close to those in power, want to continue working in the dark. We\u2019ll continue to act to expose the moves that led to approving a monstrous compound adjacent to the Old City\u2019s walls, which will change the face of Old Jerusalem and its surroundings.\u201d
\nNeither the Justice Ministry nor Elad would comment.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The right-wing NGO Elad has petitioned the High Court of Justice to prevent the disclosure of the group\u2019s contacts with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the ministry\u2019s director general Emi Palmor. The information is expected to shed light on how an Elad project was approved. The left wing NGO Ir Amim submitted a freedom of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-79"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}