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Page last updated
March 11, 2007
Understanding the conflict
page under construction
Land issues1. Breaking the Law in the West Bank - The Private Land Report - Nov. 2006
“This report by the Peace Now Settlement Watch Team is a harsh indictment against the whole settlements enterprise and the role all Israeli governments played in it. The report shows that Israel has effectively stolen privately owned Palestinian lands for the purpose of constructing settlements and in violation Israel's own laws regarding activities in the West Bank. Nearly 40 percent of the total land area on which the settlements sit is, according to official data of the Israeli Civil Administration (the government agency in charge of the settlements), privately owned by Palestinians. The settlement enterprise has undermined not only the collective property rights of the Palestinians as a people, but also the private property rights of individual Palestinian landowners.”
In an article entitled "Land claim unsettles Israeli settlers" Joshua Mitnick, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor focused on Ma'ale Adumim to the East of Jerusalem, and one of the largest settlements, and intended by Israel for annexation. Here 'a startling 86 percent' is stolen, private Palestinian land.
2. In early 2005 there was a furore in Israel over land issues.
a) In East Jerusalem it turned out that the Israeli govenment had - secretly - allowed confiscation of Palestinian properties since the previous summer under the absentee property laws. After massive protests this appears to have been reversed. See:
Meron Rapaport Land lords
Ha'aretz commentary Injustice and stupidity in Jerusalem
Jonathan Cook Israel's latest land grab is part of an old strategy
b) The Attorney General has ruled that JNF lands cannot be leased to Jews only as this is discriminatory. Atttempts are underway to find ways around this... On this, see:
Akiva Eldar Zionism on trial
Amiram Barkat Buying the State of Israel
Uri Avnery Dunam after Dunam
Andrew Schamess' blog of 02/09/2005And Meron Benvenisti neatly links the issues in A Shameful Kind of Zionist
