Saturday, January 22, 2005

Seizure in absentia

January 21 2005


Israel-Palestine conflict: Seizure 'in absentia'

pv vivekanand

THIS WEEK'S Israeli seizure of large tracts of Palestinian-owned land near occupied Jerusalem is a clear indicator of the shape of things to come under Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans regardless of whatever else is going on in terms of efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Consolidating Israel's illegal presence in the West Bank while withdrawing from the troublesome Gaza Strip is one of Sharon's objectives. It is served partly by the "separation wall" that he is building along the West Bank by fencing in the illegal Jewish settlements and huge chunks of adjoining Palestinian land.

The seizure of the land pulls the rug from under the feet of Israel's explanation to the international community that it needs the wall to check Palestinian infiltrators into Israel. For all technical and practical purposes, the seizure of the land is part and parcel of Sharon's strategy, and that was indeed true of all his predecessors.

(According to Palestinian historian and scholar Edward Atiyah, the exodus from Palestine in 1948 "was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country."

"But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin," he notes.

"There were two good reasons why the Jews should follow such a policy,'" according to Atiyah. "First, the problem of harbouring within the Jewish state a large and disaffected Arab population had always troubled them. They wanted an exclusively Jewish state, and the presence of such a population that could never be assimilated, that would always resent its inferior position under Jewish rule and stretch a hand across so many frontiers to its Arab cousins in the surrounding countries, would not only detract from the Jewishness of Israel, but also constitute a danger to its existence.

"Secondly, the Israelis wanted to open the doors of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration. Obviously, the fewer Arabs there were in the country the more room there would be for Jewish immigrants. If the Arabs could be driven out of the land in the course of the fighting, the Jews would have their homes, their lands, whole villages and towns, without even having to purchase them. And this is exactly what happened.")

Walled out

The plots that the Israeli army seized this week were separated from their owners by the wall in the Bethlehem and Beit Jalla areas south of Jerusalem. The portion of the wall in these areas was completed in August last year, and since then their owners have not had access to the land.

Effectively, the lands belong to those who live in adjoining areas that do not fall inside Israel's definition of "greater Jerusalem." Most of them do not have Israeli "permission" to enter "greater Jerusalem."

Sharon has sprung a five-decade-old "law" that "permits" Israel to seize lands that belong to "absentees" -- technically meaning that the landowner is not present in Palestine to claim and utilise the land. Israel applied the so-called law primarily to Palestinians who fled or were driven out during the 1948-49 war that followed Israel's creation in Palestine. Under that law, at least 20,000 Palestinian homes in the largely Jewish West Jerusalem were seized by Israel in the 1950s.

Refusing entry

Since then, the "law" was applied to individual cases wherever possible. One of the tenets of the "law" says the owner has to be away for a period longer than seven years before the land or property could be seized. But even that was never followed, with the occupation authorities moving in against whatever they could lay their hands on. Another move to support this policy was to refuse entry back to the West Bank to Palestinians who have stayed more than two years outside their land. That denial ensured that they would be barred from Palestine for life and thus the door was open for seizure of their property under the "absentee law."

Sharon has defended the latest move by insisting that the "Custodian of Absentee Property" has the authority to "transfer, sell or lease" land in Arab East Jerusalem belonging to "absentee owners."

Never mind that the owners of the lands seized this week were not absent from the West Bank. Never mind that the lands were cultivated by their Palestinian owners until August when the wall deprived them of access to their property. They could see their land through gaps in the wall, but are unable to get there.

There are many legal arguments against Israel's seizure of the lands, but none is likely to stand up in an Israeli court. The Palestinians have no recourse to approach an international court since Israel, backed by the US, has refused to accept that the Geneva Conventions are applicable to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Of course, an international court uninfluenced by the US could handle the case and issue a ruling, but then the question that comes up is: Who will or can pressure Israel into respecting that ruling?

Sharon and his predecessors refrained from applying the "absentee law" to lands in the outskirts of their self-styled "greater Jerusalem" if only because it would have triggered a massive protest.

That Sharon has found it fit now to exercise the "absentee law" shows that he is ready for a "showdown" with the Palestinians. Obviously, he believes the situation in Palestine is opportune for Israel to move swiftly towards its strategic and territorial goals.

No doubt, Sharon would find some way to apply the essence of the "absentee law" to the rest of the West Bank and seek to "legitimise" his plans for annexing the grabbed land into Israel.

In the bargain, he is creating insurmountable obstacles in the way to a peace agreement. Obviously, a peace accord with the Palestinians is not in Sharon's cards since he should be perfectly aware that every centimetre of land taken from the Palestinians would place prospects for peace farther and farther since those who lose the land would not accept that loss as part of the price for peace; and this would make the mission of the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), all the more difficult and complex.

Perhaps that is what Sharon wants. After all, by own admission (through his adviser), Sharon's goal is to freeze any peace negotiations with the Palestinians deep in formaldehyde. What better way to do that by creating ground realities that negate all prospects for a just and dignified peace accord based on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people?