The three justices accepted the State's claim, supported by an affidavit by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that despite promises given by previous Israeli governments to the former residents that they would be allowed to return, Israeli interests, primarily the security situation and the Palestinian demand that refugees be allowed to their former homes in Israel, justify rejecting the petition.

The Court's decision concludes six years of hearings on the issue and states that former residents, who are now Arabs citizens of Israel, will have to make do with alternatives offered by the State, in the form of allocation of land elsewhere or monetary compensation.

The ruling, written by Justice Dalia Dorner, states that because the issue is mainly a political one, the State enjoys a wide field of discretion and that the government's decision in case was reasonable. However, the Court did recognize the existence of a "debt of honor" created by the many years of unfulfilled promises by the State that the residents would be allowed to return to Ikrit.

The Court said that in the future, it would be fitting to consider a solution that would enable the displaced residents to return to their village, if and when the security and political situation allows.

This is the fourth such plea by the former residents of Ikrit since 1948. A 1951 ruling by the High Court stated that the displaced residents could return to the village as long as emergency decrees were not issued. But the government quickly issued the decrees, preventing their return. Two subsequent appeals by the residents against the decrees were rejected.

In the current petition, the displaced residents asked the Court to order the government to allow them to return to their village, or at least to implement the recommendations of the committee headed by former Minister David Libai, to enable them to return to parts of the village.

The government claimed that the Palestinian Authority would take advantage of any precedents concerning the return of displaced residents, for political and propaganda ends.

The government also claimed that accepting the petition would have far-reaching and strategic implications that would harm Israel's vital interests, because 200,000 other displaced citizens have also demanded that they be allowed to return to their respective villages. The petitioners claimed that the State's attempt to portray them as Palestinian refugees was outrageous, since they were citizens of the State of Israel.

The justices hinted in an earlier hearing last year that they would accept the government's position, when they asked the State to detail the proposed compensation for the petitioners. At that time the committee of the displaced residents of Ikrit stated that since the expropriation of the land in 1948, residents of the village had agreed to accept compensation for only 900 dunam of the 16,000 dunam the Israel Lands Administration formally recognizes as belonging to them.