Land was and still is the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict in
Palestine. Even prior to the establishment of the State of Israel
in 1948, the Zionist movement invested intensive efforts to obtain
land from its Arab owners. The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth
le- Yisrael), for example, was established with the sole aim and
role of buying land from the Arabs. Yet, in spite of these efforts,
only a small percentage of land passed into Jewish hands, mostly by
Arabs who at the time lived in neighboring Arab countries, such as
Lebanon and others.
When the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 of November 29,
1947, calling for the partition of Palestine, only 7 percent of the
land was in Jewish hands; Palestinians owned the remaining 93
percent. In the wake of the Arab defeat in the 1948 war, the State
of Israel was established on 78 percent of the total area of the
land of Palestine, leaving the west bank of the River Jordan
together with the Gaza Strip to Jordan and Egypt,
respectively.
Immediately after the end of the 1948 war, Israel's campaign for
the acquisition of Palestinian land took new shape. Instead of
buying the land from its Palestinian owners, the newly created
Jewish state passed laws which would enable it to obtain land
through "legal" means. Accordingly, the 1948 Land Law was passed,
which stipulated that any land not in active cultivation for three
years, was considered "neglected" (matruk) and, upon the authority
of the Ministry of Agriculture, its ownership was passed on to
another party. This procedure was made possible through a unique
cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Israeli
Military Administration. The Palestinians who had not fled or had
not been expelled during the 1948 war, but remained on their land
within the Israeli state, were placed under administrative
detention by the Israeli Military Administration. They were denied
freedom of movement and were thus kept from cultivating their
lands. These lands would later be declared "neglected" by the
Ministry of Agriculture and would pass into Jewish ownership.
In 1950, Israel passed the Law of Absentee Property, which enabled
it to expropriate millions of dunums (four dunums equal one acre)
of Palestinian land and to pass them to the control of the Minhal
Mekarkaei Yisrael (The Israel Lands Authority). Part of these lands
belonged to Palestinians who had fled the country and had become
refugees, but part also belonged to those who had remained in what
became the State of Israel, but were moved by the Israeli
authorities from their villages of origin and concentrated into
other ones, where they would be under the tight control of the
Israeli Military Administration. This earned them the status of
"absentees"!
Subsequently, the Development Authority was founded in 1951. It had
for role the exploitation of the lands of absentees, and was given
the authority to transfer these lands to Keren Kayemeth or the
State of Israel - but never to non-Jews. Indeed, to this day, Keren
Kayemeth, the Israel Lands Authority, Amidar, and other bodies
dealing with land go by one rule: no land can be transferred to
non-Jews.
Unequal Shares
Today, the total area of the State of Israel is approximately 20
million dunums. Of this, 92 percent is totally closed to non-Jews.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Arabs who remained in what became the
State of Israel constituted 18 percent of the population and owned
25 percent of the land at the time of the establishment of the
state. Today, they still make up 18 percent of the population -
because the natural population growth among them is balanced by
Jewish immigration into the country - but they hardly own 4 percent
of the land. Accordingly, the share of every Jewish citizen within
the State of Israel is 4.2 dunums, while that of Palestinians is
0.7 percent of a dunum per person.
Following its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in
1967, Israel used similar methods and tactics to expropriate
Palestinian land and to transfer it to Jewish ownership. In the
occupied territories, however, Israel does not enjoy the status of
a state. It is an occupying power and has no right to claim unto
itself the ownership of what is considered "state land." Legally,
these lands belong either to Jordan, which was the ruling state
there prior to 1967, or to the Palestinian people and the future
State of Palestine.
This, however, has not ended the conflict over land and, clearly,
has not stopped the Israeli authorities from grabbing more and more
of it. They are proceeding with the expansion of existing Jewish
settlements on Palestinian land, and with the extension of their
fences to include additional land. Bulldozers work day and night to
change the topography of the land and to create new facts on the
ground. Zoning plans are drawn periodically, and fraudulent deals
are still carried out for the buying of Palestinian property. All
this raises a major question: What is the use of obtaining more and
more land here and there? How can this Israeli policy be viewed as
compatible with all the efforts that are being exerted for the
achievement of peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Where does
the problem between the two peoples really reside? Is it in who
will have more land or who will feel more victimized? Or does it
rather lie in how to realize justice for both peoples and to
convince them that there is yet a chance for them to live in peace
side by side?
One also questions the absence of equal justice for both peoples.
What legal or moral grounds, for example, give a Jew, any Jew from
any part of the world, the right to settle and live in occupied
Palestinian land, while Palestinians are denied reciprocity,
including the right to live even in Arab East Jerusalem? In fact,
Israel considers the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem as
foreigners who need residence permits to live in their own
hometown. These can be arbitrarily revoked, leading to the-
expulsion of their holders from their city.
Burning Questions
These questions and many others are constantly raised and engender
fear and bitterness among the Palestinian population. It is
becoming increasingly obvious to them that they are being faced
with a racist regime whose aim is to uproot them from their land
and to replace them with Jews. The experience of the Arab Bedouins,
who in 1950 were expelled from their own lands in the Negev and
relocated to another spot in the occupied territories, is a
striking evidence of this policy.
The Israeli people must come to terms with the fact that, on this
land, another people is entitled to the same rights. The
expropriation of more Palestinian land and the settling of Jews
deep in the heart of the occupied territories will only complicate
the situation by making impossible any geographical separation
between Israel as a Jewish state (with a Jewish majority), and
Palestine as a non-Jewish majority.
The current policy of the Israeli government will, in the long run,
lead to a situation whereby, in the occupied territories, a
majority of Palestinians will be ruled by a minority of Jews. This
cannot be viable. It will be replaced by a binational state - but
only after a protracted, painful and bloody struggle, causing great
suffering on both sides.
The time has come to pause and question: Why all this suffering?
Should not human lives be more valued than "one dunum here and one
dunum there"? Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly
difficult with the wave of right-wing Jewish fundamentalism
poisoning hearts and minds and undermining the forces of peace and
moderation. Only a shock can bring people to their senses. Or a
firm international stand.