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Well, At Least It Corrects An Injustice

Prelude to annexation? Law allowing Jewish property ownership in Judea and Samaria passes preliminary vote

The Knesset passed a law proposal effectively repealing the Jordanian property law which prohibits Jews from openly owning property in Judea and Samaria.

Settlement leader Daniella Weiss.
Photo: Yossi Aloni/Flash90

The Knesset plenum approved a law proposal by Religious Zionism MK Moshe Solomon today (Wednesday) in the preliminary vote, which would repeal the Jordanian law now in force which prohibits Jews from owning property in Judea and Samaria.

The Jordanian Law, passed in 1953, allows only those with Jordanian or Arab citizenship to own property in the area.

While the law still has to pass through a first vote and a number of committees followed by a second and third vote to become law, it would amount to a sea change in how property is acquired and adjudicated in Judea and Samaria.

Disputes over ownership of land in Judea and Samaria have been the frequent topic of court rulings and Supreme Court decisions, with the debates mostly revolving around whether there is any evidence at all of prior Arab ownership or even use of a given parcel of land.

While the Israeli government used to take a much broader view of what counts as "state owned land" which may be used for Jewish settlement, it has dramatically scaled back the amount of land that falls under this classification.

A law allowing Jews to directly purchase and hold title to land would bypass this problem and avoid debates over state vs. private property, which are increasingly decided in favor of the latter on the basis of little or barely any evidence.

The law would also cement Israeli control and legal sovereignty over the area, undermining the previous regime whereby Israel claimed it was only holding it "temporarily" until a peace settlement is negotiation - originally with Jordan, and now with the Palestinian leadership.

A number of senior people in the Netanyahu government, including Minister Bezalel Smotrich, believe that the second Trump administration is the time to try to annex at least part of Judea and Samaria, and have worked on plans in that direction. Trump and senior Republican leaders, however, explicitly opposed the idea as being bad timing.

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