ABSTRACT
In December 1997, a group of residents from Ganey Aviv, the new Jewish neighborhood in Lod, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the state of Israel, their local municipality, and several other authorities. The residents claimed that massive illegal construction activity was taking place near their neighborhood and its surroundings, and that in some cases the culprits were neither the owners of the land nor even citizens. The plea stressed further that a mosque, which had also been constructed illegally, disturbed the peace. Moreover, the residents argued that they had become subject to harassment on nationalist grounds, and that the authorities’ lack of punitive action against the illegal construction created a security threat in the heart of the state (C.A. 7371/97).
