The bill, put forward by Bayit Yehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich would make it possible for anyone to directly purchase land in Area C.
The Ministerial Legislative Committee is scheduled to debate a bill Sunday that would make it easier for Jews to purchase land in Area C of the West Bank.
The bill was put forward by MK Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi), who has been among the leading legislators working to strengthen Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria.
That law has remained on the books for the last 51 years. A 1971 injunction designed to amend the Jordanian law, does allow for a company registered to operate in Judea and Samaria to purchase property, irrespective of the ethnic or national identity of the owners. This loophole has been used to enable Jewish purchase of property.
Smotrich’s bill would allow anyone to directly purchase land in Area C.
The explanation for the bill states that it is “unacceptable” for Israelis citizens to be barred from buying land in Judea and Samaria just because they are Israeli citizens.
A second bill, also sponsored by Smotrich, would allow the Kiryat Arba settlement and settlements in the South Hebron Hills to be considered part of the Negev for economic purposes.
The law would not annex those settlements to Israel, but would allow them to benefit from government initiatives and grants to develop the Negev.
At present, such funds and initiatives can only be applied to Israeli communities within sovereign Israel.
Former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert had an understanding with the US that Israel would refrain from providing special economic assistance to the settlements.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not abided by those restrictions.
@ Bear Klein:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-blocks-settlement-annexation-bill-from-coming-to-a-vote-1.5809143
I referred to this. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. He’s never been more popular — he’s handling foreign and economic policy really well and improving Israel’s standing and image in the world. No point in relying on him on this issue. Other avenues must be pursued, piecemeal.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
This is a political decision. If the Knesset applies Israeli Civil Law to Area C, the court I do not believe will intervene even if someone brings a case.
@ adamdalgliesh:
I agree but I think it is ridiculous that even Individual Arabs with land deeds should be able to crawl out of the woodwork decades later claim land that they have never paid taxes on (which, moreover, they would never agree to do, because that would imply recognition of the legitimate authority of the Jewish state.)
Or, the Knesset could pass a bill requiring the payment of back taxes on claimed land. As anywhere else, failure to pay would lead to foreclosure and the sale of land at auction, unless another law was passed declaring all such land state land.
Shaked, to get this through, would have to couple it with another threat to challenge the authority of the Supreme Court, in general, to get it through and not be overturned. Playing chicken with them has worked well, so far, they are cowards.
Unfortunately, these piecemeal measure are also required because everytime somebody proposes a bill to bring Area C under civil law, somebody torpedoes it, sometimes the Court, one time it was Lapid, most recently, it was Bibi, claiming Trump wouldn’t go for it.
It seems to be necessary to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks as is being done. Everybody is doing everything they can think of. Can anybody think of something else to do? It’s easy to criticize from the side-lines.
Apply Israeli Civil Law now to all of Area C, that solves the issue. Not the piecemeal approach.
Shalom, (I am so depressed, I have given up eating.)
I am trying to help prevent forest fires in Israel. But it is too late. The Arabs are starting with arson attack again. Are we going to wait to after the forest fires to do something about it?
The JNF is planting trees with drip irrigation and not repairing the soils in between them allowing the shrubs to continue growing and creating dry forests that are perfect for starting major forest fires.
The only way to prevent forest fires is with holistic grazing. I sent you information how to solve this problem and many other problems in Israel.
It is real sad and even depressing only 3 are helping prevent this again.
Bless Israel with the Israel Longhorn Project and help.
This is making thing worse….
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robin@longhornproject.org
http://longhornproject.org
Another unbelievable mickey-mouse legal system revealed. In 1967, one of the first things that Israel should have done, was to declare all Jordanian Laws in Eretz Yisrael as null and void, and the land taken under the control of the State. Immediately…!!
As the need warranted the land should haven been made available for purchase by JEWS only. Arab legal ownership only piles up later problems searching out terrorist centres, or buying them out at massively inflated prices. And they wouldn’t have been there, except for the tyro UNWRA doling out multiple free-bees, which drew them like flies into the country in the first place, the majority oft them.
After all our bitter, bitter experiences from the Arabs in YESHA over the many years, there is NO place for them in our Holy Land. They have 22 other countries, far more suitable in culture, language, sharia law and other goodies like polygamy.
Maybe not now, because of Jewish myopia, and the disease of caring for others more than for our own, but the day WILL come when my assertion will be acknowledged as being a major ..”THIS is what we SHOULD have done”. Like our realisation today of out foolishness in the immediate post 1967 smashing victory, that we desperately needed, and which we so cavalierly threw away. And the months before the Oslo Obscenity, and the day after it….. Outstanding marks in Jewish history, and our expertise in “grabbing defeat from the jaws of Victory.” .
This can be put on our collective tombstone as an example of the non-stop unique reasons for the demise of a unique nation.
A very important, desperately needed bill. However, Jordanian law should have no application whatsoever in the administered territories. Smotrich and Shaked should intoruce legislation to theat effect.
There should also be a law banning the Supreme Court and its agent, the Attorney General, from exercising any authority whatsoever in J&S. Only military courts should have any jurisdiction in civil cases, and criminal cases involving only Arabs. Where Jews and other Israeli citizens are charged with crimes, however, they should be entitled to civil trials under Israeli law. Jews as well as Arabs should have access to lall land registers and title deeds in government files. The insane Supreme Court ruling that all land in Judea-Samaria should be considered “privately owned Arab land” unless the government has proven beyond all reasonable doubt, must be repealed. Instead, the law should specify that all land should be considered “state or waste lands” (the phrase used in the Mandate for Palestine), unless there is clear documentary evidence of private ownership) and should be available for purchase by Jews as well as Arabs. All of these legal changes should be incorporated as Basic Laws of the state, which limits the right of the Supreme Court to overturn them (at least according to all existing Basic Laws, which are Israel’s de-facto constitution). More on this , I hope, in my next column.