¹ Levy v. Chief of Staff Israel Defence Army and others (1967) (II) 21 P.D. 165; Nir-Paz v. State of Israel (1968) (I) 22P.D. 393; Ben-Dov v. Minister of Religious Affairs (1968) (I) 22 P.D. 440; Reuven and Jaffe v. State of Israel (1968) (II) 22 P.D. 77; Haddad v. Custodian of Absentee Property and others (1968) 22 P.D. 254; Iluz and Elias v. State of Israel (1969) (I) 23 P.D. 377.

² Sec. 11B of the Law and Administration Ordinance, 1948, as amended in 1967 (amendment. No. 11). The section reads as follows: “The law, jurisdiction and administration of the State shall extend to any area of Eretz Israel designated by the Government by order.”

³ The West Bank was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Jordan in 1950. The legal aspect of that annexation and its influence, inter alia, on the jurisdiction of the religious courts that had functioned in the area at the time, are not in the scope of the present article. On this subject see Blum, Y.Z., “The Missing Reversioner: Reflections on the Status of Judea and Samaria” (1968) 3 Is. L.R. 279–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Shamgar, M., “Law in territories occupied by the Israel Defence Army” (1967) 23 Hapraklit, 539–544.Google Scholar

⁴ Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922–1947, sec. 54; Succession Ordinance; Orthodox Patriarchate Ordinance, 1941, sec. 39–42.

⁵ Law and Administration Ordinance, 1948, sec. 11.

⁶ An analysis of the Succession Law, 1965, was made by Yadin, U., “Reflections on a new Law of Succession” (1966) 1 Is. L.R. 132.Google Scholar

⁷ The development of a particular enactment under various legal regimes offers an interesting field of study. Such a study was made by Tedeschi, G., “Le Centenaire de la Mejellé”, 1969, Revue Internationale de Droit Comparé, 125Google Scholar. The Mejelle was a civil code that was enacted for the Ottoman Empire. It remained in force in the various countries which replaced the Ottoman Empire.

⁸ As will be shown hereafter, that cannot be considered to be a correct statement of the law of the West Bank. Following the occupation of the West Bank, the Israeli military commander issued an order declaring the continuity of the law in forcein the West Bank prior to the occupation, in so far as it was not repugnant to such occupation. The incorporation of east Jerusalem was thus a fact having direct bearing on the law of the West Bank.

⁹ At p. 269; emphasis in original. This step was taken pursuant to the adoption by the Knesset on 27 June 1967 of the Law and Administration Ordinance (Amendment No. 11) Law, 1967, in which it was laid down that “The law, jurisdiction and administration of the State shall extend to any area of Eretz Israel designated by the Government by order”.

¹⁰ Ben-Dov v. Minister of Religious Affairs (1968)(I) 22 P.D. 440, at 442.

¹¹ See Blum, op. cit. and also Rubenstein, A., Constitutional Law of the State of Israel (1969) 46–49 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar

¹² The Law by which sec. 11B of the Law and Administration Ordinance was enacted.

¹³ Municipalities Ordinance (Amendment No. 6) Law, 1967.

¹⁴ Both amendments to the Laws, the Government Order and the proclamation of the Minister of the Interior were published on 28 June 1967. On that same day the Government published yet another proclamation whereby the area of east Jerusalem was included in the district of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem sub-district. That proclamation was made by virtue of its powers under sec. 3 of the Law and Administration Ordinance, 1948, to divide the area of the State into districts and sub-districts and to demarcate their boundaries.

¹⁵ Emergency Regulations (Security Zones) 1949 (these regulations were subsequently extended by the Knesset by law); Absentees' Property Law, 1950; War Damage Compensation Tax, 1951; State Property Law, 1951.

¹⁶ At p. 274.

¹⁷ O'Connell, D. P., “State Succession in Municipal and International Law”, Cambridge University Press (1967) Vol. I. pp. 101, 142Google Scholar. It is tobe observed that the question whether Jordan had acquired sovereignty over the West Bank is at most debatable; see Blum, op. cit. and n. 3, supra.

¹⁸ Foreign Judgments Enforcement Law, 1958, sec. 7.

¹⁹ Legal Assistance to Foreign States Law, 1956, sec. 8.

²⁰ At p. 275.

²¹ 288 N.Y.S. 2d p. 787, mentioned in (1969) A.J.I.L. 146.

²² See Conférence de la Haye de droit international privé. Commissions rogatoires. Draft Convention adopted by the Special Commission and report of Mr. Ph. W. Amram. Doc. prel. No. 3 Aug. 1968.

²³ Evidence Ordinance, sec. 15.

²⁴ It is true that Israel has allowed a German court to hear witnesses in Israel in a criminal proceeding regarding Nazi atrocities against Jews. This could hardly be considered as a precedent in the subject under discussion.

²⁵ See Zamir, I., “The Jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice”: Studies in Law, in memory of Abraham Rosenthal, pp. 225–257 (in Hebrew)Google Scholar.

²⁶ At pp. 279–280.

²⁷ In Fakhri Jaddai v. President of the execution office, Haifa and others (1955) 9 PJ). 135, it was argued, inter alia, that the Catholic Melkite religious court was unlawfully constituted because its members had been nominated by the Melkite Patriarchate residing in Lebanon. That country being at war with Israel, it was therefore argued that the Patriarch was an “enemy alien” whose connections with Israel could not be accorded legal recognition. The Supreme Court rejected the argument on two main grounds: firstly, relying on international law principles, the U.N. Charter and the Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement (1949)—the relations between Israel and the Lebanon could not be considered to be those of war, even though they certainly did not amount to those of peace. Secondly, even if the nomination of the judges by the Melkite Patriarch were an act of an enemy alien, the executive in Israel had power to authorize that act, as indeed it had.

²⁸ This case has also been reviewed by Shapira, A. in (1969) 25 Hapraklit, 456Google Scholar: “Local and Foreign Jurisdiction Exercised by the Same Forum”.