Why I think Israel's policies in regards to land reclamation are problematic.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 12:55PM Summary of Israel's land requisition laws since 1948 which created the State of Israel.
by "Peltuose" March 2023 Reddit
(Ed: A comment on this site that provides a well researched and evidence linked overview of Israel's Land laws)
This week marked the end of a decades-long legal battle over an apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Israeli authorities accompanied by settlers stormed the family house, arrested five activists present in it and forcibly evicted the Sub Laban family residing there replacing them with illegal settlers who seized portions of the building and hoisted Israeli flags over it. This comes after the The Department of Execution and Procedure had said the family would be evicted between 28 June to 13 July. According to the Times of Israel the Jewish plaintiffs were saying that the Palestinian residents are 'squatters' in an apartment historically owned by Jews. It's worth mentioning that the residence was owned by a trust for Kollel Galicia, a group that collected funds in Eastern Europe for Jewish families in Jerusalem prior to the first Arab-Israeli war, and at it's surface this case might not seem wholly interesting or very unique, as this is pretty much the full picture about this specific situation that is being depicted in the media. Except there is a much more deeprooted and systemic issue related to this and many other cases like it in regards to how and to who Israel issues land re-acclamations.
First off let's start with the term 'squatter'. It is quite a popular term to describe Palestinians living not only in East Jerusalem but in other places in the West Bank also. For people more familiar with the Israeli right you probably know of someone called Aryeh King who is currently serving as the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem. He also happens to be a central figure in the Israel Land Fund, who's stated mission is 'putting the land of Israel back into Jewish hands' via advertising and facilitating property sales exclusively for Jewish residents. On the Israel Land Fund's website website (which has since been updated) you could find investing opportunities for "ideology properties" for lands/residences in East Jerusalem under Hebrew names. In one listing it said plots were being squatted on by Arabs who have built on them illegally or are renting in a neighborhood he's helping evict a Palestinian family from a house in. This man is also on record saying that this neighborhood will be a Jewish neighborhood and given that Israel bans Palestinians from construction anyway (I'm assuming this policy is also upheld in East Jerusalem and not just Area C) it is doubtful that actions like this are anything more than race-based land claims to random houses and neighborhoods anywhere in Jerusalem, regardless of whether or not the property actually ever was ever owned by Jews. Also, Aryeh King, who was one of the founders of the Ma'ale HaZeitim settler compound, told The New York Times that the eviction of Palestinian families was "of course" part of a municipal strategy to create "layers of Jews" throughout East Jerusalem. It's also worth mentioning that the property in Sheikh Jarrah in dispute, for example, includes plots of land that the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah (who were refugees) received in an UNRWA lottery, who relinquished in return their refugee documents and accompanying rights. 28 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah had housing units built for them in agreement by UNRWA and the Jordanian government. Some people might assume that virtually any house in dispute in East Jerusalem that Palestinians lived/live in had actually been owned by Jews prior to the first Arab-Israeli war, however settlers and settler organizations also target houses built by and for Arabs on properties they claim belonged to Jews (although this claims have varying authenticities). They have no right under Israeli law to repossess their pre-1948 homes in Haifa, Sarafand and Jaffa. It seems unfair that Palestinians both have had to relinquish return to their original cities and localities as well as the residences which they were resettled in by the UN and lived in for decades, while that same standard is not applied to Jews. It seems as though this term is meant to be more of an insult than an accurate description. Aryeh King is certainly not the only example of someone making claims or using words like this. One thing is abundantly clear to me. There is in fact widespread systemic discrimination going on in regards to land reclamation. Jewish residents do have a legal process to re-claim land. Palestinians do not. In the video I linked above, the house Aryeh King is helping evict of it's Palestinian residents either did have Jewish residents prior to the first Arab-Israeli war or was owned by them so they were able to reclaim it via the courts since a descendant of the family eventually sold it off to Aryeh King who then passed it on to another settler who was a member of the Israel Land Fund, where both King and this settler jubilantly delivered an eviction notice to the Palestinians living there on video. There is some evidence to support the fact that there is some form of discrimination/double-standards going on here. Golda Meir, the same lady who made the famous "There was no such thing as Palestinians" statement, had actually lived in Villa Harun al Rashid, which was a house in the Jerusalem suburb of Talbiyya, built and originally owned by Palestinian Hanna Bisharat and taken over by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The original owner’s grandson, George Bisharat, explains the situation surrounding their family home here, here, and here. Anticipating a visit from U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold, it is said, she ordered the sandblasting of the tiles on the front of the house to obliterate the "Villa Harun ar-Rashid" and thereby conceal the fact that she was living in an Arab home, however it seems as though the name is still faintly visible according to George. Source So here we have a situation where some refugees on both ends are being re-settled in homes that were formerly owned by random people of the 'other side'. This was pretty much the status-quo until 1967. After Israel conquered the West Bank Jews were able to both contest ownership claims in East Jerusalem and elsewhere as well as enforce rulings by the Israeli government. Palestinians could not. This leaves us with today's situation, where land reclamation can pretty much only be awarded to Jews and not Arabs meaning Palestinians like the Bisharat family cannot get their home back, because they were stripped of the title to their home through a law passed by the newly-established Israel called the Absentee Property Law: From Wikipedia (apologies for the lengthy excerpt): "The absentees’ property laws were several laws which were first introduced as emergency ordinances issued by the Jewish leadership but which after the war were incorporated into the laws of Israel. As examples of the first type of laws are the Emergency Regulations (Absentees’ Property) Law, 5709-1948 (December) which according to article 37 of the Absentees Property Law, 5710-1950 was replaced by the latter; the Emergency Regulations (Requisition of Property) Law, 5709-1949**, and other related laws.** According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 41), unlike other laws that were designed to establish Israel’s legal control over lands, this body of law focused on formulating a legal definition for the people (mostly Arabs) who had left or been forced to flee from these lands. Specific laws in this category include: The Absentees’ Property Law, 5710- 1950 The Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law, 5713-1953 Absentees’ Property (Eviction) Law, 5718-1958 Absentees’ Property (Amendment No.3) (Release and Use of Endowment Property) Law, 5725-1965 Absentees’ Property (Amendment No.4) (Release and Use of Property of Evangelical Episcopal Church) Law, 5727-1967 Absentees’ Property (Compensation) Law, 5733-1973 As a result, two million dunams were confiscated and given to the custodian, who later transferred the land to the development authority. This law created the novel citizenship category of "present absentees" (nifkadim nohahim), persons present at the time but considered absent for the purpose of the law. These Israeli Arabs enjoyed all civil rights-including the right to vote in the Knesset elections-except one: the right to use and dispose of their property. About 30,000-35,000 Palestinians became "present absentees". According to Simha Flapan**, "a detailed account of exactly how abandoned Arab property assisted in the absorption of the new immigrants was prepared by** Joseph Schechtman**":** It is difficult to overestimate the tremendous role this lot of abandoned Arab property has played in the settlement of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants who have reached Israel since the proclamation of the state in May 1948. Forty-seven new rural settlements established on the sites of abandoned Arab villages had by October 1949 already absorbed 25,255 new immigrants. By the spring of 1950 over 1 million dunams had been leased by the custodian to Jewish settlements and individual farmers for the raising of grain crops. How much of Israel's territory consists of land confiscated with the Absentee Property Law is uncertain and much disputed. Robert Fisk interviewed the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property, who estimates this could amount to up to 70% of the territory of the state of Israel: The Custodian of Absentee Property does not choose to discuss politics. But when asked how much of the land of the state of Israel might potentially have two claimants — an Arab and a Jew holding respectively a British Mandate and an Israeli deed to the same property — Mr. Manor [the Custodian in 1980] believes that 'about 70 percent' might fall into that category. The Jewish National Fund, from Jewish Villages in Israel**, 1949:** Of the entire area of the State of Israel only about 300,000-400,000 dunums – apart from the desolate rocky area of the southern Negev, at present quite unfit for cultivation – are State Domain which the Israeli Government took over from the Mandatory regime. The J.N.F. and private Jewish owners possess under two million dunums. Almost all the rest belongs at law to Arab owners, many of whom have left the country. The fate of these Arabs will be settled when the terms of the peace treaties between Israel and her Arab neighbours are finally drawn up. The J.N.F., however, cannot wait until then to obtain the land it requires for its pressing needs. It is, therefore, acquiring part of the land abandoned by the Arab owners, through the Government of Israel, the sovereign authority in Israel. Whatever the ultimate fate of the Arabs concerned, it is manifest that their legal right to their land and property in Israel, or to the monetary value of them, will not be waived, nor do the Jews wish to ignore them. ... [C]onquest by force of arms cannot, in law or in ethics, abrogate the rights of the legal owner to his personal property. The J.N.F., therefore, will pay for the lands it takes over, at a fixed and fair price. The absentee property played an enormous role in making Israel a viable state. In 1954, more than one third of Israel's Jewish population lived on absentee property and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in urban areas abandoned by Arabs. Of 370 new Jewish settlements established between 1948 and 1953, 350 were on absentee property (Peretz, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs**, 1958).** The Absentees’ Property Law, 5710- 1950 This law replaced the Emergency Regulations (Absentees’ Property) Law, 5709-1948**. According to** Sabri Jiryis (p. 84), the definition of "absentee" in the law was framed in such a way as to ensure that it applied to every Palestinian or resident in Palestine who had left his usual place of residence in Palestine for any place inside or outside the country after the adoption of the partition of Palestine resolution by the UN. Article 1(b) states that "absentee" means: "absentee" means - According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 41), the provisions in the law made sure that the term 'person' did not apply to Jews**. The law also applied to Arabs who had become citizens of the State of Israel but were not in their usual place of residence as defined by the law. In this case, they were referred to as 'present absentees' and many lost their lands.** The Law then appointed a Custodianship Council for Absentees' Property, whose president was to be known as the Custodian of Absentees' Property (Article 2). The law then made these properties the legal holdings of the Custodian. According to Art. 4.(a)(2): every right an absentee had in any property shall pass automatically to the Custodian at the time of the vesting of the property; and the status of the Custodian shall be the same as was that of the owner of the property. According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 41), those who were found to occupy property in violation of this law could be expelled, and those who built on such property could have their structures demolished. The law came to apply not only to Palestinians who fled but also to those who were away from their regular places of residence (as described in the previous paragraph). According to the Israel Government Yearbook, 5719 (1958) (p. 235), the "village properties" of absentee Arabs "which was appropriated by the Custodian of Absentees' Property" included "[the land of] some 350 completely abandoned or semi-abandoned [Arab] villages, the aggregate area of which was about three-quarters of a million dunums .... Among the agricultural properties were 80,000 dunums of abandoned groves... [and] more than 200,000 dunums of plantations were taken over by the custodian. "It was estimated that "the urban properties ... include[d] 25,416 buildings in which there are 57,497 dwellings and 10,727 business and trade premises. According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 41), "estimates of the total amount of ‘abandoned’ lands to which Israel laid claim vary between 4.2 and 5.8 million dunum (4 200-5 800 km²). Between 1948 and 1953 alone, 350 of the 370 new Jewish settlements were created on lands confiscated under the Absentees’ Property Law. The Absentees’ Property Law underwent several amendments. Both amendments clarifying rental arrangements and tenant protection rights on such property." So in effect, Israel's laws allow Jews to file claims over property held prior to 1948, but reject Palestinian claims over property that they owned prior to 1948 in Israel proper leading to a one-way street of selective justice. What further supports the idea that there is in fact selective justice and double standards going on in regards to land is the fact that Israel recently legalized 9 illegal West Bank outposts, all of which were built without permits and some which were built on private Palestinian land and most if not all settlements in the West Bank have been built on land expropriated from Palestinian localities, and in some cases surrounding private Palestinian land which Palestinians can't access. It seems clear that there is a stark contrast between how Israel deals with Palestinians and Jews in regards to issues relating to land. While not all (or maybe any) Arab-Israelis might be affected by policies like this, but here I am discussing an issue that applies to many non-Israeli Palestinians who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population. ***********************************************************************************
Hanna and Mathilde Bisharat (holding infants), with other family members, in front of Villa Harun ar-Rashid, ca. 1929. The infants are Ibrahim (Fred) and his twin, Habeeb, who died of pneumonia in Villa Harun ar-Rashid as a toddler.
Arabs living in neighborhoods within West Jerusalem such as Katamon and Malha were forced to leave and Jews in East Jerusalem, including the Old City of Jerusalem and Silwan, had the same fate. Almost 33% of the land in West Jerusalem in the pre-mandate period had been owned by Palestinians, and the Knesset passed laws to transfer these Arab-owned lands to Israeli Jewish organizations (more on that in a bit). In essence there was something like a 'population exchange' where Jewish and Arab refugees were often but not always re-settled in homes that formerly belonged to other refugees in Jerusalem. The evacuated Jewish residents were resettled in Palestinian homes in West Jerusalem and the evacuated Palestinian residents were resettled in Jewish homes in East Jerusalem. Again this was not the case for all, but this did happen to an extent on both sides. By the time of the armistice that ended active fighting, Israel had control of 12 of Jerusalem's 15 Arab residential quarters. An estimated minimum of 30,000 people had become refugees.
Large tracts of land belonging to Arab absentees have also been leased to Jewish settlers, old and new, for the raising of vegetables. In the south alone, 15,000 dunams of vineyards and fruit trees have been leased to cooperative settlements; a similar area has been rented by the Yemenites Association, the Farmers Association, and the Soldiers Settlement and Rehabilitation Board. This has saved the Jewish Agency and the government millions of dollars. While the average cost of establishing an immigrant family in a new settlement was from $7,500 to $9,000, the cost in abandoned Arab villages did not exceed $1,500 ($750 for building repairs and $750 for livestock and equipment).
Abandoned Arab dwellings in towns have also not remained empty. By the end of July 1948, 170,000 people, notably new immigrants and ex-soldiers, in addition to about 40,000 former tenants, both Jewish and Arab, had been housed in premises under the custodian's control; and 7,000 shops, workshops and stores were sublet to new arrivals. The existence of these Arab houses-vacant and ready for occupation-has, to a large extent, solved the greatest immediate problem which faced the Israeli authorities in the absorption of immigrants. It also considerably relieved the financial burden of absorption.
— Robert Fisk, 'The Land of Palestine, Part Eight: The Custodian of Absentee Property', The Times**, December 24, 1980, quoted in his book** Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War
(1) a person who, at any time during the period between the 16th Kislev, 5708 (29th November, 1947) and the day on which a declaration is published, under section 9(d) of the Law and Administration Ordinance, 5708-1948(1), that the state of emergency declared by the Provisional Council of State on the 10th Iyar, 5708 (19th May, 1948)
(2) has ceased to exist, was a legal owner of any property situated in the area of Israel or enjoyed or held it, whether by himself or through another, and who, at any time during the said period -
(i) was a national or citizen of the Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq or the Yemen, or(ii) was in one of these countries or in any part of Palestine outside the area of Israel, or(iii) was a Palestinian citizen and left his ordinary place of residence in Palestine(a) for a place outside Palestine before the 27th Av, 5708 (1st September, 1948); or(b) for a place in Palestine held at the time by forces which sought to prevent the establishment of the State of Israel or which fought against it after its establishment;(2) a body of persons which, at any time during the period specified in paragraph (1), was a legal owner of any property situated in the area of Israel or enjoyed or held such property, whether by itself or through another, and all the members, partners, shareholders, directors or managers of which are absentees within the meaning of paragraph (1), or the management of the business of which is otherwise decisively controlled by such absentees, or all the capital of which is in the hands of such absentees;