Israel plans big Jerusalem land grab
By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza
Thursday 20 January 2005, 17:17 Makka Time, 14:17 GMT
The Sharon government intends to strip thousands of
West Bank
Palestinians
of their property in occupied East Jerusalem,
according to the Israeli
press
quoting newly released government documents.
At stake are thousands of donoms of land belonging to
Palestinians who
live
in the West Bank and are now unable to access their
land due to
Israel's
separation barrier.
The decision, reached by the Ministerial Committee for
Jerusalem
Affairs in
June of 2004, and approved by Prime Minister Sharon
and his
attorney-general
a month later, has not been publicised until now.
By some estimates, the total land to be expropriated
could add up to
half of
all East Jerusalem property.
The move is based on the Israeli Absentee Property Law
of 1950, which
holds
that assets of Jerusalemite Palestinians who were in
the West Bank and
Gaza
Strip at the time of the 1948 War would be
expropriated by the state of
Israel, without the absentee being eligible for
compensation.
Political considerations
The law, which applied to millions of Palestinian
refugees who were
unable
to return to their homes after the 1948 war, has not
been applied to
West
Bank residents with property in East Jerusalem until
now.
The decision is the latest in a series of measures by
the Israeli
government
apparently aimed at eliminating Palestinian claims to
Jerusalem and
ultimately predetermining the future status of holy
city.
According to the Israeli Human Rights group B'tselem,
the development
of
East Jerusalem, since its illegal annexation in 1967,
has been based on
political considerations designed to strengthen
Israeli control over
the
city, by creating a decisive majority of Jews.
Pressure tactics
By all accounts, the Israeli ministry of interior is
using land
expropriations, identity-card seizure, exorbitant
taxes and
difficult-to-obtain building, family-reunion and
residency permits to
slowly
force Palestinian residents out of the city.
A law passed by former prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's government
in the
late 1990s, declared that any Palestinian who has not
lived in the city
for
seven continuous years loses his residency rights, for
example.
The Netanyahu law, whose time limit has since been
changed to three
years,
does not apply to Israeli Jews
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