Bill will allow theft of all land
Israel to nullify a law limiting grab to state land, allowing seizure of any Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank
JERUSALEM // A controversial bill that would legalise the seizure of Palestinian private property is expected to easily pass in a Knesset vote next week.
A vote on the Settlement Regulation Bill – intended as a major step towards annexation of the occupied West Bank – was originally due to take place in December. But it was delayed until now to avoid criticism from the Obama administration and in the expectation that it would be backed by Donald Trump.
While Israeli officials have used a variety of legal devices over the years to lay claim to Palestinian property, including deploying a law dating back to Ottoman times stipulating that agricultural land left fallow reverts to the state, the bill would enable seizures on a grand scale and without the need to resort to legal sleight of hand. Only Israel’s supreme court could overturn it.
In 1979 , the court deemed it illegal to build settlements on what is clearly private Palestinian property, limiting such seizures to state land and purported military necessity.
The new law would effectively nullify that court decision, opening even more areas of the West Bank to Israeli settlement. Masoud Ganaim, an Arab member of the Knesset, said the bill would “legitimise the theft of land from the Palestinians and is an opening to annexation of the rest of the territory in the West Bank. It will change everything”.
Dror Etkes, director of the moderate Israeli Kerem Navot NGO, which monitors land use in the West Bank, said the bill, if passed, would retroactively legalise many thousands of houses built on private property in hundreds of places.
These include smaller wildcat settlement outposts built with government backing, and established settlements that were constructed partly on private property, such as Beit El near Ramallah and Eli on the road to Nablus.
“Almost every settlement in the West Bank has parts that were built on private Palestinian property,” said Mr Etkes, who formerly monitored settlements for the Peace Now organisation.
“If you don’t understand that stealing property from people, especially people who cannot defend their rights because they are at the bottom of the food chain is wrong, you have a moral and personal problem.”
Mr Etkes said the bill breaks the fourth Geneva convention, which stipulates that an occupying power can seize property only for military necessity.
Politicians, army officers and settlers could leave themselves open to prosecution in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
“This is heading to an escalation of the relations between Israel and the international community, at least parts of the inter- national community that Israel wants to be respected by, namely Europe and sooner or later other countries,” Mr Etkes said. “Assuming Trump won’t remain president for ever, sooner or later it will put Israel in confrontation with important parts of North American politics as well.” Arab Knesset member Haneen Zoabi termed the bill “an extreme example of Israel’s continuing tradition of land theft”.
“This law is illegal by Israeli legal standards and probably will not pass the supreme court. Maybe that’s what the government expects and counts on,” he said.
NGOs and private individuals are expected to petition Israel’s supreme court to have the law declared illegal at the first op- portunity. Israel’s hard- right politicians have defended the bill against Arab and left-wing criticism.
Bezalel Smotrich, a Knesset member from the hard- right Jewish Home party that is part of the ruling coalition, said seizing Palestinian private property complied with democratic norms. “Every democratic country confiscates property for the good of the public,” he told The
Jerusalem Post. “The settlement activity is a public purpose, not a private purpose.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennet went further by hailing the bill as “leading the way to annexation” of the West Bank.
Rami Mansour, a leading journalist among the Arab citizens of Israel who edits the Arab 48 website, last month called upon Israel’s Arab citizens to reassess their participation in the Knesset in light of the bill, which “changes the rules of the political game. Parliaments generally deal with laws inside their country”, he said.
“The United States doesn’t legislate laws that apply to India. But here, Israel is legislating a law that applies to territory not under its sovereignty.
“It is legislating a law to expropriate from Palestinians, not by means of military orders, but by legislation in contravention of previous practice.
“This is anti- democratic and turns the Knesset into the tool of the right.”