The colonization of Palestine, the main nonsubjective of Zionist movements in the first half of the 20th century, yet led to the establishment of a judaic state in 1948. This happened after decades of fighting and non-obvious alliances in the mediate East, and was the accident of power games – starting with Britain, seeking to safe its influence in a rich region, making contradictory promises to the Arabs, Jews and French, to France itself supporting Zionist terrorist movements directed against the English. The losers of these shufflings, as frequently happens, were the inhabitants of the region – in this case Palestinians.
In view of the European interest in the mediate East, coupled with chaotic anti-Semitism, seeing Zionism as a solution to the "Jewish question", the Palestinians' attachment to the land was not an argument with which anyone counted. Baruch Kimmerling, an Israeli sociologist, described what happened to the Palestinian population in connection with Balfour's declaration, a promising "national home" for Jews as polyticide (‘political assassination’). This was essential from the point of view of those who wanted to establish a judaic state in a region mostly inhabited by the Arabs, in which the Arabs would be a broken minority. This required far-reaching erasure of Palestinian history, culture, identity – as well as Palestinians themselves.
In 1948 Nakba took place, being by 2023 the undeniably most tragic episode in Palestinian history. During cultural cleansing, about 750,000 Arabs were driven out of their homes by Zionist militias and Israeli troops. For the recently created state of Israel, it was time to legalize conquests and cement dominance.
Stronger Law
The expulsion of Palestinians was in flagrant conflict with global law. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 called on Israel to let refugees to return to their homes, restitution of occupied property and compensation for destruction. As compliance with these requirements would endanger the judaic majority in Israel, it was decided to ignore them and alternatively introduce a series of oppressive laws concerning Palestinian property in the recently created state.
In May 1948, a Committee for Abandoned Property was formed, which considered Palestinian farmland as property of Israel, having no legal basis. It is worth mentioning that at the time of the establishment of the state only about 6 percent of the land of the Palestine Mandate was legally located in the hands of judaic settlers.
The government was wasting no time – in June he released Ordonans about abandoned areas. The land acquired by the Israeli armed forces and abandoned by the fleeing population (or simply persons who for various reasons were not at home) was defined as abandoned. Hands of the Abandoned Cultivation Committee established in August The land was leased to judaic settlers, who were given the right to usage all the livestock found in the fields. However, the settlers were inactive only landowners – the temporary government did not settle the question of who their legal owner was. The lease was to take a year and let the government to hold its flexible right to dispose of the properties until their legal position was yet established. The first crucial regulation in this area was established in December 1948, beginning a twelve-year legal process which was to legally transform Palestinian lands into Israelis.
Present
Absent property regulation is simply a legal act which defined "not present" (absentees) so wide that it included not only Palestinians who fled beyond the borders of Israel but besides internally displaced – but never applied to judaic settlers. Those who, after Nakba, remained within the borders of Israel but were driven out of their homes, fell into the Kuriosian category of “present-away” (present absentees). Their lands were put at the disposal of the Absent Property Manager. It could have de facto classified the property at its discretion and the current (Palestinian) owner had the burden of proving that it was not actually ‘not present’. The same rule applied to Palestinian enterprises, olive groves, citrus crops or vineyards. Meanwhile, there was a process of settling judaic settlers in Palestinian cities: Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem.
– any 25 percent of Palestinians who remained in Israel, or 30–35 1000 people, are classified as “currently absent”, explains lawyer Ewa Górska, who runs the profile of @reorient on Instagram. "It is presently estimated that there are around 250,000 "present-aways" surviving in Israel and their descendants, any 70 to 100,000 of whom live in settlements not recognized by the administration and law of the State of Israel.
In 1950, the Law on Absent Property was issued, culminating in the assassination of Palestinian Property and which is inactive in usage today. It besides defined the "not present" as the owner of any property within the borders of Israel, who had left his residence at a certain time.
In practice, this law besides treated people who simply fled to neighbouring villages as “not present”. – utilizing the law after the end of the armed conflict to take over the land of refugees is not an isolated case. akin rules were introduced in Turkey, Greece, India and Pakistan," explains Ewa Górska. "However, in Israel these rights were applied not only to absent refugees but besides to the Palestinian number remaining in the country.
Unlike erstwhile regulations, it gave the admin the right to sale the lands of refugees alleged the improvement Agency, which could later sale them back to the State or the judaic National Fund. This movement made these areas inaccessible for possible first owners who might be willing to buy them back to their homes. Between 1948 and 1953, from 370 fresh judaic settlements as many as 350 were created on “not present” properties. From May 1948 to late 1951, nearly 700,000 settlers moved into confiscated Palestinian lands. In 1954, more than a 3rd of the Israelis lived on the land of the “not present”, and prof. Don Peretz estimated that the seized arabian property constituted a 4th of Israel's wealth.
– However, it was not until 1953 that the issue of the acquisition by the State of the property of the "not present" was regulated, which had so far been in the trustee's trust. It was decided that any land not owned by the legal owner should be registered as state land," says Ewa Górska. – Expropriations for military purposes and for the construction of judaic settlements were besides legalised at the time, as well as previously executed confiscations.
Another interesting maneuver was besides used. any Palestinian lands were considered restricted areas for military use. Thus, the Palestinians could not grow their fields, which made them wasteland. Shortly thereafter, it turned out that a unusual coincidence of wasteland could be taken over by the state under the Law on Landfill Cultivation of 1948.
Of course, the predatory course, which aimed to wipe Palestinians out of the past of the region as shortly as possible, met with opposition and even with attempts to assert their rights before Israeli courts. It could be thought that this maneuver would be effective, given that from the very beginning, the Zionist task had, according to the leaders of the movement, led to the creation of a “civilization against barbarism” bridgehead and goldenized the backward region with the benefits of the regulation of law and order. Among another things, the inhabitants of Iqritm Kufr Bir’im, who were resettled from their village in the fall of 1948, after which they were considered to be “present-aways”, and their lands as closed areas, were given to Israeli settlers.
The Palestinians won the case before the Israeli ultimate Court, who handed the defence minister a restitution order for confiscated property. In response, the minister ordered the army to raze the village to the ground to prevent the return of its inhabitants. Ben-Gurion later wisely explained that the people of Kufr Bir’im were not the only "present-away" people and that it was essential to prevent any action that would let Palestinians to legally return home. It was not amazing – as early as June 1948, an order was issued to prevent “at all costs” the return of refugees, which contributed to the killing by the Israeli army of between 3 and 5 000 Palestinians trying to return home in 12 years.
– Not only after the 1948 war, the Property Act was applied – says Ewa Górska. – erstwhile again, its regulations were utilized on a massive scale after the war of 1967, especially in Jerusalem, erstwhile after the annexation and expansion of the city's borders many property owners found themselves on the another side of the fresh border between Israel and the Occupied Territories. Moreover, this law remains in force.
An example of modern usage of the Absent Property Act She wrote in judaic News Anna Roiser – she was attacked by a commentary for simply beginning a discussion on the injustice of the 1950 law. Roiser described the past of the Sumarin family, property owners in Jerusalem. After the owner died in 1984, household members continued to live in his home, but the legal title passed to sons surviving in Jordan. Thus, the property could have been taken over as “propriety of the absent”, resulting in the household receiving, after years of legal battle, an eviction order in 2020.
Right to return
The issue of compensation for tragic years after the uprising Israel is part of the discussion of the alleged right to return, which, according to the Palestinian side, is owned by refugees and their descendants, who have left their homes in Israel and who frequently pass on the keys to them from generation to generation, and so the key is 1 of the symbols of Palestinian resistance.
The right to return is simply a key request of the Palestinians, raised in peace negotiations. Israel will never give its consent (it is not even supported by the left-wing political factions). Given that return is out of range, at least until possible abolishing apartheid and the creation of a two-national state throughout Palestine – a distant vision, spread by many pro-Palestinian intellectuals – were besides considered various forms of compensation. In 1953, compensation was offered to internally displaced Palestinians – “present-away”. However, the fixed amount for dunum (unit of measurement) was to be only about £20, at a marketplace price of £250. At that time respective 1000 people benefited from the option to receive compensation.
Similar laws were passed in 1973, but no of them solved the problem of stealing Palestinian property – they were only ways to free themselves of the claims of part of the displaced population at a tiny cost. The people who would most gladly accept their villages, fields and homes alternatively of compensation, and who have criticised specified forms of redress from the beginning.
– In 2001, during negotiations in Taba, the issue of refugees was discussed. The Palestinian proposal included, among another things, reimbursement of property or compensation for losses and compensation for host countries. Israel rejected the anticipation of returning the property, offering only financial and in-kind damages, supervised by an global commission. The parties besides agreed on a joint paper on the compensation mechanism, although issues concerning the scope, valuation and financing of compensation remained disputed. Negotiations were discontinued after the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister in February 2001, explains Ewa Górska.
He adds: "In later years, further attempts were made to negotiate, but no advancement has been made. The instability of negotiations and political changes in Israel make it impossible to accomplish any agreement that satisfies both sides. all time a preliminary common arrangement was reached, the government was changing, and the prevailing opposition wanted to cut off from the erstwhile arrangements. In each subsequent conversation, possible ideas on the calculation of losses and assessment of claims are besides changing.
I asked Górska how the Palestinians themselves present relate to the issue of compensation. – They do not want to accept them, due to the fact that it would mean a final waiver of claims to lost lands and homes. specified a decision so has a dimension not only individual but besides collective, social, cultural. It's a resignation from hope.
