{"id":34462,"date":"2020-07-07T08:08:14","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T05:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/?p=34462"},"modified":"2020-07-21T12:15:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T09:15:18","slug":"annex-and-dispossess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/annex-and-dispossess","title":{"rendered":"Annex and Dispossess: Use of the Absentees\u2019 Property Law to Dispossess Palestinians of their Property in East Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report by Peace Now’s Settlement Watch team<\/h2>\n

Download the full report<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1967, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and applied the Israeli law over the area. Absentees\u2019 Property Law that allows the State to take control of properties that had belonged to Palestinians up until 1948 was also applied to the annexed area.<\/p>\n

Following the annexation the Israeli governments refrained from using the law, however one decade after 1967, the Likud government started to take advantage of it to deprive Palestinians of their assets in East Jerusalem and transfer them to settlers.<\/p>\n

About one-third of the area designated for Israeli annexation in the West Bank according to the Trump plan (about 530,000 dunams) is Palestinian private land. The experience of the annexation in Jerusalem shows that there is real concern that the law will be applied to these vast areas and will deprive hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their assets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peace Now looked into the East Jerusalem precedent of annexation and brings a thorough report about the way Israel used the law in East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

This report reveals how a secret government mechanism established under the Likud government in the 1980s, transferred dozens of Palestinian assets in Silwan and the Muslim quarter to settlers, through use of the Absentees\u2019 Property Law, among other means.<\/p>\n

The method worked as follows: Settler-related bodies recruited people to declare that the owners of certain properties were absentee landlords. These affidavits were passed onto the Custodian for Absentees\u2019 Property, who deemed that they were indeed absentees\u2019 assets without any further inspection. Thereafter, the absentees\u2019 assets were passed onto the JNF, which passed them onto settlers. The Palestinian families living in these properties discovered that their homes were sold by the state to settlers, upon receiving lawsuits from the settlers or the JNF by the mail, demanding that they vacate the house. Thus a long, costly, exhausting legal battle ensued, for underprivileged Palestinian families versus powerful well-funded bodies like the JNF and settler organizations. Some of the families have been compelled to leave their homes, few have managed to save them, while others are still struggling.<\/p>\n

The report cites numerous documents that indicate how the Absentees\u2019 Property Law was abused, and how in spite of court rulings that deemed the process corrupt and unacceptable \u2013 the assets were not returned to their owners. An analysis of various governments\u2019 policies, which is detailed in an appendix to the report, indicates that even when governments sought to reduce use of the law, the following governments always found means of changing the policy and reexpanding takeover of Palestinian assets through the Absentees\u2019 Property Law.<\/p>\n

Download the full report<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Table of Contents:<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Summary<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/p>\n

A. What is the Absentees\u2019 Property Law?<\/p>\n

B. Annexation of East Jerusalem and application of the Absentees\u2019 Property Law – 1967<\/p>\n

C. The Absentees\u2019 Property Law as a tool for dispossessing Palestinians of their property in East Jerusalem<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01. The secret government mechanism for transferring Palestinian assets to settlers<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02. How the method worked<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a03. \u201cWhat do I have to check?\u201d The unbearable ease with which assets are deemed \u201cabsentees\u2019 property\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a04. Initiators of the declaration of assets as \u201cabsentees\u2019 property\u201d: The Jewish National Fund (JNF) and settlers who ultimately receive the assets<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05. Judicial decision: the procedure is unacceptable, yet the assets are nonetheless \u201cabsentees\u2019 property\u201d<\/p>\n

D. Absentees\u2019 Property Law in Jerusalem \u2013 depends on the government\u2019s \u201cgood will\u201d<\/p>\n

Appendix I: Teddy Kollek\u2019s effort to return assets to their owners<\/p>\n

Appendix II: The political game \u2013 various governments\u2019 policies regarding the Absentees\u2019 Property Law in East Jerusalem<\/p>\n

Appendix III: The Hussein ruling and its implications on absentees\u2019 property in East Jerusalem<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report by Peace Now’s Settlement Watch team Download the full report   In 1967, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and applied the Israeli law over the area. Absentees\u2019 Property Law that allows the State to take control of properties that had belonged to Palestinians up until 1948 was also applied to the annexed area…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397,2511,16],"tags":[2765,2813,2319,2881,2940,1322,3211,3177],"class_list":["post-34462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-jerusalem","category-reports-en","category-settlement-watch","tag-absentees","tag-annexation","tag-elad","tag-jnf","tag-kkl","tag-silwan","tag-sumarin","tag-3177"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34462"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34690,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34462\/revisions\/34690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacenow.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}