The following is gleaned from a comprehensive article. “Legal Chaos” by Akiva Bigman published in the 18 May edition of Makor Rishon.
Makor Rishon has developed into a quality publication rivaling and at times exceeding the depth of the Hebrew print edition of Haaretz.
Contact IMRA@NETVISISION.NET.IL for the article as a pdf.
Dr. Aaron Lerner IMRA 28 May 2012
Joseph Ezra’s father owned a home in Hebron. When the Jordanian Legion
captured the city in 1948 all the assets of Jews were put under the control of the National Custodian, under the title ‘Enemy Property’. There are dozens of such buildings in Hebron. The properties were leased out to Arabs. In this case as stores.
In 1967 when Hebron came under Israeli rule the leases to the Arabs were continued by the Israeli authorities.
The Israeli authorities approved erection of a large apartment house above the stores called “House of Nahum and Yehuda” . In 2001 it was decided for security reasons to close the Arab market place and move it – with full compensation to the store owners – to the Arab part of town.
The property remained empty. After repeated requests of the Jewish community to use the assets were not answered, a few families entered the empty property and renovated it, turning the property into proper homes.In 2007 an eviction order was issued. The eviction was appealed to the military appeals committee, which functions as a kind of court of appeals with regard to decisions of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria. The committee observed that it was the obligation of the authorities, as custodian for the property, to insure that beneficial use comes from it and that in contrast to the abandoned buildings near it that were in disrepair, the property in question had been improved and under the circumstances “the correct and effective use of the property is to allow families to live in the shops … “.
Following the instruction of the military appeals committee, the Jewish community in Hebron- together with Joseph Ezra – submitted a request for an orderly take over the property. The Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria ruled that while the military appeals committee was indeed the format for appealing their decisions that the rulings of the committee were not binding and could be overruled by the Civil Administration and the request was denied.
In November 2010 Peace Now petitioned along with the Arab merchants to
remove the Jews from the property.
Section 2 – How rules for agricultural land ownership changed
One common way to to register the ownership of land in Judea and Samaria is by applying the provision of Ottoman law, that if someone held land for ten consecutive years without opposition he owns the property. In fact, the ownership of much of the privately held land inside the Green Line was established this way.
This method of property transfer is especially useful in the case of Palestinians who face the death penalty for selling land to Jews.
This way money crosses between the parties and all the Palestinian has to do is keep quiet for ten years.
In a move to undermine this procedure, Mr. Mike Blass, who serves as Deputy Attorney General, filed with the Supreme Court that “at present … the seizure of land … is seen as a forbidden and immoral, and as a basis for anarchy.” Blass asked the court to not only bar the future use of the ten consecutive year provision to record future property ownership but to void the ownership registrations made to date in Judea and Samaria (by Jews) on this basis.
At the same time, Captain Ronit Levin, acting as the legal advisor to the West Bank Military Prosecutor’s Office, issued a series of orders and directives to strip the ten year rule. She ruled that the ten year count begins again each time a farmer changes the type of crop that he grows on the land.
Two months ago the Supreme Court upheld this position.
Ronit Levin also came up with an additional legal innovation, called a
“disturbing use” order. It allows the Civil Administration to rule that a person’s possession of property is illegitimate because it may raise political or security issues. The Civil Administration is not required to provide any documentation to support the “disturbing use” order.
This order was first issued by the Civil Administration against residents of the “House of Contention” in Hebron four years ago.
According to lawyer Bezalel Smotritz of the Regavim movement this order has been used this order twenty time.
The combination of these innovations is a pincer movement which threatens almost every Jewish farmer in the West Bank.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Latest Weapon Against Israel: Palestinian Christianity
“these Arab Christians at the conference are convinced they want to see the Jewish state vanish. They don’t believe Israel has any promises yet to see fulfilled. But what is the big deal with a conference in Bethlehem attended by 600 people? The danger is that strident anti-Israel, anti-Semitism, cloaked in the “love of God for our enemies (i.e. Jews)” is so beautifully wrapped in churchy language that many Evangelicals in the West could be (and sadly probably will be) deceived and hoodwinked into believing that the Church has replaced Israel and that the state of Israel has caused the Palestinians incalculable injury and injustice.
By putting on sheep’s clothing, the Palestinian Christians can do far more damage to the people of Israel than even Muslims can. The Christian terminology sounds familiar, the jargon is spiritual, but the end goal is the destruction of Israel. That’s what Replacement theology allows.
There is no way to compromise with Replacement theology. Replacement theology, no matter who teaches it and who holds it, is the key evil of historical Christianity and it has been the principle motive for the Holocaust and the blood libels and pogroms of history.”
I apologize for getting the ratio of Muslims to Christian wrong, and for mistating that it was his father when I should have said it was his grandfather.
The sources is the NY TIMES
Now, during the Arab Uprising of 1936-39, only 4 out of 282 leaders were Christians.
The Israelis knew that the Muslims much more than the Christians were the problems.
This is my reason for assuming that Christians were less of a threat.
I had also read that during one campaign the Christians were allowed to be internally displaced while the Muslims were expelled.
So, since this man’s grandfather was internally displaced, I assumed he was Christian.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You’re presuming a moral equivalence here. For the most part, however, that simply is an illusion in re the War of Independence.
There was clearly an Arab plan to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews, and the Arabs made no bones of the fact — from Day One — they were proud of their intentions. “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre that will be spoken of like the Mongolian Massacres and the Crusades.” Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League
The project was sloppily carried out, TBS, and ultimately it failed — but not for lack of effort or intent. It was simply poorly executed. “[A]ll Arab armies obeyed their own commanders and there was no coordination among them.” [Mary C. Wilson, King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), p. 170]
There was, however, NO such corresponding plan on the part of the JEWS. The only instances in which Arabs were deliberately expelled en masse were those which entailed military necessity, or those which in which a village or town had concretely demonstrated active hostility toward the Jewish forces. That was the only basic directive — Tokhnit Dalet [“Plan D”]. Ethnic cleansing wasn’t part of it.
For the most part, when the local Arabs fled, it was because their leaders either:
A. enticed them to evacuate — with promises of sharing in the expected spoils to be left by the (anticipatedly) exterminated Jews; OR
B. ordered them to evacuate — under threat of being considered disloyal (i.e., traitorous) to the Arab cause (e.g., Haifa, etc)
The conquest of Ramle & Lod/Lydda — Operation Dani on July 10, 1949 — averted an Arab threat to Tel Aviv, thwarted an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, and helped demoralize nearby Arab cities. In any event, however, Lod was in many ways unusual. It was a complicated case made tragic by, among other things, miscommunication.
The city was about to surrender to Jewish forces; however, the [Transjordanian] Arab Legion sent in a few armored cars to relieve the remaining Legionnaires in the Lydda Police Station — who were panicking at the approach of the Jews & had been desperately sending out S-O-S to their HQ.
So when those armored cars arrived, they started firing wildly at the Jewish forces. And when the Arab populace saw this, they (those who were still armed) ALSO started firing at the Jewish forces. The Jews shot back. A lot of people died. Yitzhaq Rabin [Palmach] gave the order to evacuate everybody. Lydda was occupied by Israel forces & the great majority of its inhabitants abandoned the town.
The former denizens of LOD remained as citizens? — Where do you hear that?
Christian population of Lod was small, but in any case why do you assume they were no threat just because they were Christians? Actually as a matter of history, in the early days of Arab nationalism, the anti-Zionist movement — such as it was — was led & spearheaded not by Muslims but in fact by Christians (perhaps to establish their bona fides with the larger Muslim population (but this is largely beside the point anyway; as I said, Lydda was a special situation — essentially sui generis).
Got a source for that little factule?
BTW & FYI:
Ever since the 19th century a small Jewish community had existed in Lydda/Lod, but the 1921 Arab riots compelled the last of its Jewish inhabitants to leave. Further attempts to reestablish the community during the Mandate era failed because of recurrent Arab violence. The town, which numbered only a few hundred families at the beginning of the century, expanded quickly & in 1919 became an important railway junction. In 1944, Lydda numbered about 17,000 Arab inhabitants, one-fifth of them Christians , the rest Muslims.
TG should also stress that the New Worlders stole land from its original inhabitants whereas Jews are the indigenous of the land of Israel not the Arab squatters. One can only marvel at the stupidity of the Israeli government that recognized and deemed legitimate title rights granted by the Jordanian enemy after these very same lands were liberated.
@ the phoenix:
the above highlighted qote was “TG”s and NOT curious american…
minor glitch?
CuriousAmerican Said:
right on!!!
To Curious American [settler], from Curious Israeli [native]: Why don’t you, and fellow bleating Anti-Israel bleeding-heart settlers in America, invite Deputy Attorney General Mike Blasst and Capt. Ronit Levin to teach you how to introduce an American version of the ‘disturbing use’ legal innovation into American law so as to deal with “….the seizure of native lands which should have been declared ‘forbidden and immoral..and a base for anarchy…’ by the legal authorities of the rapacious settlers in the ‘New World’, just arrived from the
‘Old World’? After which all the other Blass and Levin orders and directives to strip the rights of the descendants of the new worlders to their property, could be added forthwith. Mmmmm, I wonder how you, not to speak of other Americans of settler origin, especially farmers, would respond. Meantime, Israeli authorities (or land-detectives employed by Jewish residents of Judea/Samaria/Hebron, etc.) should look really hard into exactly where Blass and Levin live to ascertain whether or not they are breaking their own property laws and, if so, to apply, their orders and directives against them even more harshly, without further ado. What’s more, it’s about time our gov’t starts worrying about the rights of the Jews, the native people of Israel-Judea-Samaria, to live wherever they wish throughout their homeland without being persecuted by unpatriotic Leftwing idiots like Blass, Levin, Peace Now, ICAHD, etc., etc.
@ CuriousAmerican:I am not screaming. Relating to you facts. Please try to avoid foul shots passing as innocent examples.
The Arab islamic hordes for the most voluntarily left after being asked to do so by their military and civilian leaders. The plan by the enemy was to raze the Jewish people and then return to their or stolen lands after that was done. Case closed.
The Jews were massacred and forced to leave by the British allied with the said Arabs.
Bring it on. And sue Arab governments as well. Jews lost 50 percent more assets in Arab countries than Palestinian Arabs.
If you want Jews to return and take back their property … FINE … EXCELLENT … but then you have to let the Palestinians return and take back their proerty in Haifa, in Western Jerusalem … in Jaffa, etc.
Now, I am NOT actually advocating a right of return. I do not want the Jewish state to be destroyed. But I am trying to get some here to see that some of the “Jordanian actions” you protest were merely analagous to the actions taken by Israel’s Absentee Property Laws which were used against the Arabs.
You can’t blame the Jordanians for holding Jewish property as enemy property when you do the same with Palestinian properites.
I am not opposed to Israel or the land; but there has to be some matter of equity.
There were Arabs (Christian ones) who were driven from their homes in Lod and not allowed to return, though they remained in Israel as Israeli citizens. They were not allowed to return to their own property, and the government siezed it, though as Christians they were not a threat. Some even had to buy back their own houses.
There was a lot of inequity done to everyone.
You can’t be selectively outraged.
I know many of you here will scream at me. I do not care.