JERUSALEM, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 (WAFA) - The subcommittee for objections of the Jerusalem District Planning Committee yesterday convened to discuss multiple objections to a proposed plan to build the US embassy in Jerusalem – referred to as the Allenby compound – on private Palestinian land that was illegally confiscated by the state of Israel using the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law.
One of the objections discussed was submitted by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, in January to the US State Department, the US Embassy in Israel, and the Israeli planning authorities, on behalf of 12 descendants of the original Palestinian landowners whose land the State Department is seeking to build on. These descendants include four US citizens, three Jordanian residents, and five East Jerusalem residents.
The Israeli-US plan was submitted to the Israeli planning authorities in February 2021, after a meeting in which four State Department officials participated. It was made clear during this meeting that the initiative for the plan was a result of former US President Donald Trump's decision in December 2017 to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognize it as the capital of Israel. The plan further reflected the intention of the US government to build its embassy in two compounds, at two sites – one in Arnona and one in the Allenby compound – and the US representatives in attendance reiterated that they were seeking to have both sites approved for embassy construction.
Archival records, found by Adalah in the Israeli State Archives and published in July 2022, clearly prove that the land was owned by Palestinian families and leased temporarily to British Mandate authorities before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
In November 2022, Adalah and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York sent an urgent letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, calling on US President Joe Biden’s administration to immediately cancel the plan for the new US Embassy compound in Jerusalem and to demand Israeli authorities to withdraw it.
So far, in response to inquiries on the matter, the State Department has stated that the US has not yet made a decision regarding the construction plan and is still considering both the Allenby Barracks and the alternative 'Arnona site'.
Adalah’s Legal Director, Suhad Bishara, filed an objection, arguing that this plan put forth by the US government and the Israel Land Authority aims to construct an embassy complex on land that was expropriated from Palestinian owners, who became refugees or displaced persons as a result of actions that violate international law, as the expropriation of land belonging to Palestinian refugees is absolutely prohibited as permanent expropriation of the private property of people made refugees in war.
The objection further argued that planning and building the embassy as proposed in the plan would also violate Jerusalem’s special status, a corpus separatum under international law, and it would consolidate the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and reinforce Israel’s position that a “united Jerusalem” should serve as its capital, in breach of international law.
In the objection, Adalah cautioned the US government that proceeding with the plan would implicate the US in Israel's illegitimate policy of expropriating land belonging to Palestinian refugees and would lend support to the use of the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law, which is widely viewed as draconian, discriminatory, and motivated by racism.
M.K.
