The Government of Israel approved this Sunday to reopen the land registration process in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967, which will allow the Israeli State to legally and definitively register land in this Palestinian territory, according to a statement released to EFE by the Ministry of Justice.
“The approved proposal constitutes a true revolution in Judea and Samaria (the biblical name with which Israeli Zionists refer to the West Bank). The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. The Government of Israel is committed to strengthening its control over all its parts,” said the head of Justice, Yaariv Levin, after the approval of the measure, which he promoted together with the Defense and Finance portfolios.
The objective of the measure is “the registration of extensive areas” in the West Bank in the name of the Israeli State, while the Government of Israel will provide the competent government authority with budget and equipment to carry out the colonization of the land.
Justice specifies in the statement that the process will be applied in Area C of the West Bank, this being the area under Israeli administrative and military control (it covers 60% of the total enclave).
The zoning, established in the Oslo Accords, also stipulates Area A under Palestinian administrative and military control (18% of the territory); and Area B, of Palestinian administration and Israeli security control (22%).
“We continue with the settlement revolution and land grabs throughout our country. For the first time since the Six-Day War, we are restoring order and governance in the management of the lands of Judea and Samaria,” said the Minister of Finance, far-right settler Bezalel Smotrich, according to the statement.
Israel occupied the West Bank during the Six-Day War of 1967. As a result, the Israeli military attorney general at the time issued an order to immediately suspend these ownership processes in said Palestinian territory, since they contravene international law as Israel is an occupying power.
Israel Katz, head of Defense, claimed the measure as an “essential security and legal movement, designed to ensure control, its application and total freedom of action of the State of Israel in the territory”, despite the fact that it contravenes international legislation.
In addition, he assures that the measure “will allow the Army and the defense establishment to act with determination” in these areas of the West Bank in order to “safeguard the national interests” of Israel.
Theft of Palestinian land
The Israeli NGO Yesh Din explains that this process, known as title settlement, was carried out in Palestine during the British Mandate (1920-1948) to determine ownership of land. After 1948, the kingdom of Jordan, which began to administer the West Bank, continued the procedure.
“Ownership regularization is a process by which the ownership of a piece of land is determined and registered in the name of the legitimate owners in the property registry (known as tabú or tapú) in a definitive and binding manner,” Yesh Din stated on its website last September.
“Once completed, the registration process is rarely reversible,” he continues.
And it added: “The procedures for liquidating titles are acts typical of permanent sovereignty, since they create and determine absolute rights in perpetuity. Therefore, an occupation regime, which is temporary by definition, must refrain from carrying out acts that characterize a permanent regime,” the NGO points out.
Peace Now, an Israeli pacifist NGO, points out that the measure can generate a “massive dispossession” for the Palestinians of their lands in Area C, in addition to a process of annexation and application of Israeli sovereignty in these occupied territories.
Furthermore, whether these lands become registered as state land of Israel or under the names of Israeli citizens “will lead to legal complications and immense costs when a (hypothetical) two-state political agreement is reached,” he adds.
The Palestinian Authority sees the move as a “de facto annexation”
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) described this Sunday as “de facto annexation” the approval by the Government of Israel to reopen the land registration process for the first time since 1967, which will allow it to legally register land in this Palestinian territory.
“It constitutes a de facto annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory and a declaration of the beginning of plans to annex Palestinian territory with the aim of consolidating the occupation through the construction of illegal settlements,” said the presidency of the ANP, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement.
In the note, they also define it as a “violation of international law,” specifically UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which considers all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory illegal, and a “threat to stability and security” in the West Bank.
The Palestinian presidency also urged the international community, particularly the United Nations Security Council and the US government, to immediately intervene to “force Israel to comply with international law and UN resolutions.”
“These unilateral measures will not grant any legitimacy to the occupation on the territory of the State of Palestine nor will they change the legal and historical fact that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, is occupied Palestinian territory under international law,” the ANP statement concluded.
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas also reacted to the Israeli Government’s measure with a strong condemnation along the same lines as the ANP: appealing to international law and calling on the United Nations to take action on the matter.
“The decision of the Zionist occupation government to approve today a resolution allowing it to appropriate the lands of the occupied West Bank and Judaize them, registering them as ‘state lands,’ is a void decision issued by an illegitimate occupation authority and an attempt to forcibly impose colonialist practices,” Hamas said in its statement.
Jordan expresses its absolute rejection
This Sunday, Jordan expressed its “absolute rejection” of the Israeli Government’s approval of this measure, something that the Hashemite kingdom denounced as “undermining the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry condemned in a statement “the measures of the Israeli Government aimed at annexing the occupied Palestinian territory, the most recent being the illegal decision to designate lands in the occupied West Bank as ‘state lands'”, something it called a “flagrant violation of international law.”
“The Ministry emphasized that Israel does not have sovereignty over the occupied West Bank,” added the note, which denounced that this decision is also intended to prevent “the end of the occupation and the establishment of an independent and sovereign (Palestinian) State within the internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967.”
Likewise, he recalled that Israel is violating UN Security Council resolutions such as 2334, which condemns any attempt to alter the demographic composition and status of the occupied Palestinian territory and emphasizes that it will not recognize any change to the 1967 lines.
Faced with this situation, Jordanian Foreign Affairs urged the international community to “assume its legal and moral responsibilities and force Israel, the occupying power, to stop its dangerous escalation and its illegal and unilateral actions in the occupied West Bank.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
