Acting Israel PM to remove illegal Jewish outposts on West Bank News
Acting Israel PM to remove illegal Jewish outposts on West Bank

[JURIST] Interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official profile] on Wednesday asked his defense minister to create a plan for removing 24 Jewish settler outposts, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice [official website], from the Palestinian West Bank. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [BBC profile; official website] and the Israeli Cabinet originally decided to dismantle the outposts last March [JURIST report] as part of the "Road Map" to peace with Palestine, but Sharon delayed the removal of the outposts to avoid backlash from Israelis already upset with the Gaza evacuation. Settlers, who contributed to the delay with legal action over the past year, plan to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court [official website] to retain the outposts, which a government study last year also branded illegal [JURIST report]. Olmert wants to immediately begin removing outposts from the West Bank city of Hebron, where security forces arrested settlers and supporters on Tuesday. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.