Arab Israeli Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalka complained at the office of the Israeli Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu against the ongoing utilization of the Absentees Law in east Jerusalem.
{mosimage}Arab Israeli Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalka complained at the office of the Israeli Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu against the ongoing utilization of the Absentees Law in east Jerusalem.
The complaint is based on the fact that the state Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz issued an order to stop using this law in Jerusalem.
The absentees’ law allows the government to confiscate land in Jerusalem or Israel that belongs to Palestinians if they do not live in it permanently.ÂÂ
Osama Halabi a lawyer from Jerusalem said he is representing some families from the West Bank city of Beit Jala who trying to cancel an Israeli military order to confiscate their land to expand the settlement of Gilo.
Gilo was built on land from Beit Jala expropriated to expand the borders of Jerusalem after 1967.
The government claims the land as absentee property and it should be owned by the state now.
The complaint also mentions that the Jerusalem municipality ordered the owners of the land to remove garbage littered in their land by settlers.
On one hand, what Israel calls the ‘custodian of absentee property’ regarded the owners of this land as absentees when it came to confiscating the land, on the other hand, they are regarded as the land owners when it came to who should clean the trash.
Zahalka said that Israel has confiscated hundreds of thousands of acres using this law, which was issued in 1950.
Despite Mazuz’ objection to the decision to reactivate the Absentees Law, he only declared that this decision will have negative impact on Israel and will be criticized by the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu on the other hand said then, ‘this is the right Zionist decision to be taken. Israel has the rules and sovereignty, and since Jerusalem is unified this is the right policy. Arab residents of Judea and Samaria and Gaza have no claim on any of the absentees land.’
Those whom Israel calls absentees are mostly Palestinians, who became refugees in 1948 and 1967. Israel still denies their right to return to the land they were expelled from.
