Declarations of State Land in the West Bank

Declarations of State Land in the West Bank are declarations by Israeli authorities that Palestinian land is "state land", that is, land that may be legally administered by an occupying power on a temporary basis under international law, on the theory that the occupier is holding the territory in trust until sovereignty can be restored.[1] It was and is the principal method used by the governments of Mandatory Palestine and Israel respectively, to acquire land from Palestinians and sell it to Israeli settlers.[2] According to B'Tselem, it was used to expropriate 16% of the West Bank.[3]

Historical background

There is a complex mix of still-operative, Ottoman, British, Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian and international law at work in the West Bank.[4] Land and villages of the West Bank did not have a cadastral survey during the Palestine Mandate.[5] By the Six Day War of 1967, only a third of the land had been registered.[6][2]

Regulatory position and procedure

The Custodian Staff Officer of the Civil Administration (also Supervisor of Governmental and Abandoned Property in "Judea and Samaria") is the representative of the Israel Land Authority to the West Bank, whose responsibilities include the declaration of public land (“state land”).[7] The declaration procedure is an internal process of the Civil Administration. Usually the Custodian signs a certificate specifying the location and area of the land along with a map. The certificate is sent to the mukhtars of affected villages. Objections must be submitted within 45 days and if not, the declaration is considered final and the Custodian may take possession of the land.[8]

Elon Moreh case

A 1979 proceedings known as the "Elon Moreh" case (Dweikat et al. v. Government of Israel) the Israeli Supreme Court ended the use of military orders for the seizure of private Palestinian land for settlements and provided the impetus for Israel to establish a new legal basis for the requisition of land if it was to be used for settlement.[9] Following this case, during the period 1979 to 1992, 908,000 dunums were declared as state land based on a "stringent interpretation" of the 1858 Ottoman Land Code.[10]

Blue Line task force
Area of "state land" declarations ratified by year (in dunums)

In 1999, the "Blue Line Task Force" was created to re-examine land not clearly designated as State land during the 1980s. The approval of this task force is a precondition for new settlement construction plans.[11]

Declarations after 2014
"State Land" declarations in the Gush Etzion settlement area (Bethlehem)

According to Peace Now, declarations had ceased after the roadmap was concluded in 2003 but that following Netanyahu's taking office in 2009, declarations totalled more than 6000 dunums as of the end of 2015.[12] In late August 2014, in what was widely reported as a land grab,[13][14][15] the authorities [16] announced the appropriation 988 acres (3,799 dunums), defining private land south of Bethlehem as state land,[17][18][19][20] which Peace Now said was the largest confiscation of Palestinian land in three decades.[13] Then, on March 10, 2016, 2,342 dunams (580 acres) south of Jericho were declared as state land.[21]

References
  1. Orpett 2012, p. 371.
  2. Shehadeh 1984, p. 43.
  3. B'Tselem, By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank (July 2010): "The settlement enterprise has been characterized, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank. The principal means Israel used for this purpose was declaration of “state land,” a mechanism that resulted in the seizure of more than 900,000 dunams of land (sixteen percent of the West Bank), with most of the declarations being made in 1979-1992. The interpretation that the State Attorney's Office gave to the concept “state land” in the Ottoman Land Law contradicted explicit statutory provisions and judgments of the Mandatory Supreme Court. Without this distorted interpretation, Israel would not have been able to allocate such extensive areas of land for the settlements."
  4. Orpett 2012, p. 344.
  5. Essaid 2013, p. 99.
  6. Blecher 2018, p. 55.
  7. Kanonich 2017, pp. 16-17.
  8. Sfard & Schaeffer 2012, p. 46.
  9. Fields 2017, pp. 291-292.
  10. Sfard & Schaeffer 2012, p. 43.
  11. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2014.
  12. "First Declaration of State Land since the Establishment of the Current Government". Peace Now. December 10, 2015. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  13. Chaim Levinson, Jack Khoury, ‘Israel expropriates massive tract of West Bank Land,’ Haaretz 29 August 2014.
  14. Yitzhak Benhorin 'Kerry, Netanyahu discuss Israel's West Bank land seizure,' Ynet 3 September 2014.
  15. 'Britain condemns Israel’s ‘ill-judged’ West Bank land grab,' The Times of Israel 1 September 2014.
  16. Jeffrey Heller (August 31, 2014). "Israel claims West Bank land for possible settlement use, draws U.S. rebuke". Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  17. Isabel Kershner, 'Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land Near Bethlehem,' New York Times 29 August 2014.
  18. 'Israel confiscates 1,000 acres of Palestinian land south of Bethlehem,' Ma'an News Agency 31 August 2014.
  19. Renee Lewis, 'Israel confiscates nearly 1,000 acres of Palestinian land in the West Bank,' Al-Jazeera, 31 August 2014.
  20. Ben Sales, 'Israel’s land seizure: political favor or West Bank game-changer?,' Jewish Telegraphic Agency 2 September 2014.
  21. "The Government Declares 2342 Dunams South of Jericho as State Land". Peace Now. March 15, 2016. Retrieved June 10, 2020.

See also

Bibliography
  • Sami Hadawi (Editor), "Palestine Partitioned, 1947–1958", Series: League of Arab States, Document Collections, No. 3 (New York: Arab Information Center, 1959)
  • Bakir, Abu Kishk (1981). "Arab Land and Israeli Policy". Journal of Palestine Studies. 11 (1): 124–135. doi:10.2307/2536050. JSTOR 2536050.
  • Shehadeh, Raja (1982). "The Land Law of Palestine: An Analysis of the Definition of State Lands". Journal of Palestine Studies. 11 (2): 82–99. doi:10.2307/2536271. JSTOR 2536271.
See also:Shehadeh, Raja (1983). Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank – how the land was acquired for their use and how they are structured (Report). EIGHTH UNITED NATIONS SEMINAR ON THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE (9-13 May 1983, Jakarta, Indonesia).
  • Shehadeh, Raja (1984). "Some Legal Aspects of Israeli Land Policy in the Occupied Territories". Arab Studies Quarterly. 7 (2/3): 42–61. JSTOR 41857768.
  • Orpett, Natalie (January 2012). "The Archaeology of Land Law: Excavating Law in the West Bank". International Journal of Legal Information. 40 (3): 344–392. doi:10.1017/S0731126500011410.
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