The Petah Tikvah Magistrate Court this week ordered the annulment of criminal indictments for transgressing the Disengagement Act of 2005, against Rabbi Elishama Cohen, Rosh Yeshiva of the Homesh Yeshiva in northern Samaria, the yeshiva rabbis, and several students following a request from the Samaria prosecution in Ariel. The request to drop the indictments followed Knesset legislation that repealed the Act about a month ago.
The head of the Samaria Council, Yossi Dagan, who was among those expelled from northern Samaria in 2005, said: “The indictment that was filed against the students of the Homesh Yeshiva should not have been filed in the first place. There is nothing more moral than transgressing the racist law that discriminates and prohibits Jews from being in any area of the Land of Israel. The filing of the indictments was a crime on top of a crime, and I welcome the decision to drop them.”
An expelled resident of Sa Nur, Dagan vowed not to rest until Homesh and Sa Nur are full-fledged permanent settlements of the Shomron Regional Council, adding, “And I’m glad that both the prosecution and the court understand that being in these places is no longer a violation of the law, but a correction of a terrible injustice.”
Honenu attorney Moshe Pulaski who represented the students and rabbis of the Homesh yeshiva responded: “I congratulate the students and rabbis of the Homesh yeshiva, who for many years did not give up, and despite repeated harassment by the authorities and the Israel Police under the direction of the prosecutor’s office, sought to damage the yeshiva where many students gave their lives for the study of Torah and the resettlement of the Land of Israel in extremely difficult conditions.”
