Israeli court gives legal recognition to unauthorized Jewish settlement in West Bank

An Israeli court has given legal recognition to a Jewish settlement built without Israeli government authorization on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank. The decision breaks new judicial ground, Reuters said. Israel’s ultranationalist justice minister on Wednesday praised the Jerusalem District Court’s ruling, announced late on Tuesday. It is related to Mitzpe Kramim, an outpost established in 1999 near the Palestinian city of Ramallah and now home to 40 families. Most countries consider all of the settlements built on land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal, while Israel disputes this. The court declared the settlers the legal owners, finding that Israeli authorities were unaware the land was privately owned when they originally mapped out the area.