Will government implement plan to regulate both Israeli and Palestinian land in Area C? - Efrat Forsher

 

​ by Efrat Forsher

Israel Hayom learns that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has approved an idea from the IDF's Civil Administration for a system of land registration that would replace the current one, which takes years and allows for petitions and challenges.

Land frozen in the settlement of Kedimum | File photo: Omer Messinger

A decision by the IDF's Civil Administration that would severely cut back on the possibility of Israel settlements encroaching on privately-owned Palestinian land while also preventing the Palestinians from building illegally on land that is under Israeli control has been approved by the attorney general and is waiting for a green light from the nation's leadership, Israel Hayom has learned.

The IDF's Civil Administration, which operates under the auspices of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has recommended a process of regulation of land ownership in Judea and Samaria that would replace the unwieldy and lengthy process currently in use. A land survey would be conducted after which land belonging to Israel would be officially declared as such.

How would it work? The land would be mapped, and anyone claiming ownership would be invited to presented documents proving the land is in fact theirs. Then a list of all lawsuits filed by people claiming to own land would be compiled, and each case would be investigated. Each case would resolve the status of a given piece of land, and its owners would be designated. These decisions could be appealed to a judge assigned to oversee the process of regulation. Once this process is complete, a list of all land ownership would be compiled and the lands would be officially registered. Once that registration is complete, there will be no further avenue for appeal.

After World War II, the British Mandate began a process of land ownership regulation. In 1948, the Jordanians continued the process in Judea and Samaria, and managed to complete approximately one-third of the work by the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured those territories. The lands whose ownership has already been regulated mostly lie in the Jordan Valley, northern Samaria, Maaleh Michmesh in Binyamin, and Mount Hebron.

Meanwhile, land ownership in Israel, with the exception of certain areas of the Negev Desert, was also clarified and registered. In 1967, the GOC Central Command issued a directive that froze the process of regulating land ownership. In the years that followed, a method of surveying the land was established.

The method was used to survey the land, and land that had not been worked for a long period of time was declared state-owned, allowing the government to declare ownership of some 780,000 dunams (193,000 acres) in what would become Area C. However, as time went on, the process became increasingly cumbersome and expensive, leading to a wave of objections, appeals, lawsuits, and petitions to the High Court of Justice filed by both Palestinian individuals and leftist organizations.

Currently, there are some 106,000 dunams (26,200 acres) of land in Judea and Samaria that have already surveyed but not declared state-owned land, and hundreds of thousands of dunams of land that is lying fallow that has not been surveyed or declared state property, meaning that dozens of settlements across Judea and Samaria are still awaiting regulation of their status.

The Civil Administration has a team that is charged with investigating the status of this land, and it carries out about two regulatory processes a year.

Recently, MK Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan contacted Defense Minister Benny Gantz and asked why it was taking the Civil Administration so long to declare land that had already been surveyed the property of the state.

In response to Dayan's request for information, a COGAT representative wrote: "Our primary recommendation is to regulate the land in Judea and Samaria gradually, with definitive and final results. The advantages of regulating land ownership are greater than the resources invested in declaring lands to be the property of the state, when they are attacked by appeals and in the courts, a long process that sometimes takes years."

The COGAT recommendation won the support of former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. Attorney-General Avichai Mendelblit looked into it and approved it. It was submitted to the Prime Minister's Office and to all the defense ministers who have held the post in the last two years. Now the recommendation is waiting for the government to implement it.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has started its own process of regulating land ownership and has some 600 PA employees working on claims. The PA is now claiming ownership of considerable land in Area C even though existing surveys show that it is was supposed to be declared Israeli land.

The Civil Administration does not recognize land registration by the Palestinian Authority, but the more time passes, the greater the chances are that the Palestinians will be able to establish the land as theirs de facto.

A senior settlement official said Sunday that "the attorney general's recommendation is welcome news, a step that must be taken to finally provide a solution to the PA's eating away at state-owned lands and the many problems of regulating established, as well as young, settlements. This must be done without hurting any ownership rights of any part of the population. We hope that the leadership will adopt it."

Dayan said in response: "I'm a big supporter of establishing [Israeli] sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria. We need our eastern border to be the Jordan River. Until that happens, we must not leave the field empty. We need to ensure that the vast majority of settlements are regulated. Given the response from COGAT, I intend to apply pressure and take care that the response is adopted, and becomes a work plan, so that when we go back to talking about sovereignty, a situation will be created in which all settlements, outposts, and neighborhoods, are regulated. It will be a contribution to future generations," he said.

 

Efrat Forsher  

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/11/02/will-government-implement-plan-to-regulate-both-israeli-and-palestinian-land-in-area-c/ 

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