TEL
AVIV, April 16, 2015 (WAFA) – The Supreme Court of Israel has approved the
Absentee Property Law, which allows the state to take over property that
belongs to Palestinians who were forced out or displaced in 1948, mainly
targeting Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, according to media sources.
The
law was first enacted in 1950 after the great population transfer that Israel
experienced in its early days, as thousands of Palestinian Arabs were forced to
flee the city of fear of being killed.
High
Court Chief Justice Emeritus Grunis said the judges were reluctant to approve
the law, since it preceded Israel's Basic Laws, some of which might contradict
the tenets of the Absentee Property Law, according to Israel National News
website.
With
that, he said, the law should be enacted; Israel should confiscate land in
Jerusalem belonging to Palestinians living in the Palestinian Authority-run
West Bank – only under “extreme” conditions, and only with the permission of
the State Comptroller.
Commenting
on this controversial law, senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
official Ahmad Queri described the law as “racial”, and that it targets the
removal of Arab and Palestinian presence in Jerusalem. This would also finally
end up with an exclusively Jewish Jerusalem, he added.
Queri
also said the decision constitutes a blatant defiance of the international
community and an illegal confiscation of Palestinians’ property in the city.
Secretary General of the Islamic-Christian
Committee to Support Occupied Jerusalem and Holy Sites, Hanna Issa, also
denounced the court’s decision, and said such property belongs to thousands of
indigenous Arab and Palestinian residents who were forced out of their
homeland, following the 1948 and 1967 wars.
“By classifying every citizen or persons present in an
“enemy” territory or country as an “absentee” vis-à-vis property in Israel, the
law has served to confiscate the land and real estate left behind by the
Palestinians who were forcibly displaced 1948,” reports Palestinian Grassrouts
Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. “It is still in effect and used to confiscate
Palestinian properties more than six decades later.”
In 1967, most Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (OPT) theoretically became “absentees” vis-à-vis their property in
East Jerusalem which had become “Israel” as a result of the illegal annexation.
Israel’s annexation and extension of the Absentees’ Property
Law to occupied East Jerusalem is in violation of international law and has
been strongly condemned by the United Nations.
M.N/M.H
