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COURT RULES: SYNAGOGUE DESTRUCTION MUST BE RECONSIDERED

The Supreme Court ruled today that the State must call off its plans to destroy the synagogues in Gush Katif - at least for the next two days.

The Court handed down its ruling in response to a petition by the rabbi of the northern Gush Katif communities, Rabbi Yishai Bar-Chen of Elei Sinai. Rabbi Bar-Chen, together with Noach Folberg, the author of a work on historic synagogues, claimed that the State had not considered all options for maintaining and preserving the synagogues before deciding on their destruction.

Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy rebuked the State's representatives, saying, "I hear commercials on the radio all day long saying you have solutions for every thing - but for the synagogues, you have no solution?"

The Court ruled that the government must consider other options over the next two days, including the partial or whole-scale dismantling of the structures and their rebuilding elsewhere in Israel.

The petition, prepared by Atty. Gilad Korinaldi, maintained that Israel had violated international charters that guarantee freedom of religion and respect for religious sensibilities. He said it would be better if Arabs would destroy the buildings, and not Jews - and that perhaps the PA Arabs could be trusted not to vandalize or desecrate them.

Judge Dorit Beinish responded that "life experience" teaches that the Arabs could not be trusted in this connection.

Atty. Avi Licht, representing the State, said that the plan was to remove every religious item from the buildings, including the memorial name boards and the furniture, and then to destroy the remaining structure of walls and ceiling.

Prof. Uriel Simon, a left-wing Hebrew University professor, supported the petition, saying that finding a way not to destroy the synagogues is a desirable goal that would soften the national trauma. "A way [could] be found to keep the synagogues under international or Palestinian protection," he said.