ארכיון civil administration - Page 5 of 5

ט' אדר התשפ"א - 21 February 2021

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As a result of our petition, a massive junkyard that was blighting the countryside and polluting the groundwater in the Binyamin region was cleared. Countless wrecks had been piling up for years at an illegal automotive scrapyard near Bir Zeit, polluting topsoil and groundwater with untreated effluents and automotive waste.

About eight months ago, we turned to the Civil Administration to demand the clearance of the illegal junkyard. But the Civil Administration tried to shirk their responsibilities, claiming that enforcement can’t be carried out at “junkyards on private lands”. This was a ridiculous claim and defies the law that explicitly gives the Civil Administration the authority to remove vehicle wrecks from “the public or private domain”. So we had to submit a petition to the Jerusalem District Court to give them a nudge.

And indeed, recently, the Civil Administration issued orders for the owner to clear all the vehicles and to restore the area within 30 days. In recent weeks, the owner removed hundreds, if not thousands, of the old cars and dismantled the illegal garage. We are hopeful that in the coming days and weeks the rest of the area will be cleared, and this environmental hazard will be lifted.

Automotive waste and untreated effluents that pollute the groundwater don’t distinguish between Jewish and Arab lands. Environmental abuse is not a right- or left-wing issue, and doesn’t stop at the Green Line. We shall continue to push for equal law enforcement throughout the Land of Israel, the protection of Israel’s land resources and the environment.

Regavim: Protecting Israel’s Resources, Preserving Israeli Sovereignty

This first appeared on our Facebook page

Land policy

כ' טבת התשפ"א - 04 January 2021

If you were asked to name a country where there is still a law in force that prohibits Jews from buying property, you might be tempted to make an educated guess based on the dark history of Europe and the long tradition of expulsion and persecution that was facilitated by anti-Jewish legislation over centuries. Places like Germany, England and France might spring to mind; Spain and Portugal might be in the running as well.

You probably wouldn’t guess that today, in the year 2021, a law is enforced by the State of Israel that prohibits Jews from purchasing privately owned property — but that is the sad and shocking truth. Law 40, enacted in 1953 by the Jordanians during their illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria, prohibits the purchase of privately owned land by non-Arabs, as well as the sale of privately owned land to non-Arabs (in other words, Jews). Not only is Law 40 still “on the books,” but it is actively enforced to this very day by the State of Israel’s legislative, judicial and security branches.

In a very real and undeniable sense, this legislation is, quite simply, racist. It is blatantly anti-Semitic. It is regressive, and an affront to the concepts of personal liberty, equality and property rights upon which democracy is based. Laws of this kind would not be allowed to stand anywhere in the civilized world, and it is nothing short of outrageous that the Jewish state has allowed this discriminatory and regressive legislation to remain in force in a judicial system that champions individual rights.

How, then, have Jews purchased property over the past 53 years? In 1971, the Military Commander for Judea and Samaria issued a “work-around” directive, by changing the Jordanian law that pertains to corporate ownership, while leaving Law 40 untouched. Thus, companies registered in Judea and Samaria — even if they are owned by Jews — are now permitted to purchase property in Judea and Samaria. Rather than strike down Law 40, the Israeli government has left it in place and designed a method of circumventing it.

Why, you may well ask? Why should this be necessary? Simply put, the State of Israel has spent decades avoiding any action that might be construed as an act of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. It has bent itself into contorted legal positions in order to avoid fulfilling its most basic responsibilities to Israeli citizens and to the security of the State of Israel. It has procrastinated to the point of absurdity, creating a vacuum of governance and a black hole of law and order that continues to turn normal life — for Jewish and Palestinian residents of “Area C” alike — into a tangled bureaucratic nightmare.

The legal departments of both Israel’s Ministry of Defense and Civil Administration have recommended additional methods of circumventing or even amending Law 40. The Regavim Movement, on the other hand, has petitioned the High Court of Justice to strike down this racist legislation altogether, and to expunge this anti-Semitic vestige from the Israeli legal code. Striking down Law 40 is a statement of Israel’s commitment to equal and universal rights under the law — a statement that is long overdue.

ז' כסלו התשפ"א - 23 November 2020

An illegal, EU-funded, PA-built school in Nahal Machoch Nature Reserve on Israeli state land

Brigadier General Ghassan Alian, Commander of the IDF’s Civil Administration, said at a hearing in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Palestinian Authority (PA) employs hundreds of people to register real estate in Judea and Samaria – including in Area C, which is under full Israeli control, while the Civil Administration has only about 20 people dealing with this issue.

Alian’s shocking remarks were made in the context of this morning’s (November 23) Foreign Affairs and Defense Subcommittee hearing, chaired by MK Gideon Saar. The hearing, initiated by MKs Uzi Dayan, Moshe Arbel, Yitzhak Pindros and Bezalel Smotrich, examined the renewal of land registration and regulation procedures in Judea and Samaria.

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Zvi Hauser, who participated in the hearing, reacted sharply, “This is the what the State of Israel has to show for itself, although for years it has talked about the ‘battle for Area C’ but in practice only a few people are assigned to this issue – despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority has been in a race to seize control and register territory, and some 600 people are employed to do so.”

Meir Deutsch, Director General of the Regavim Movement, who participated in the hearing, says that the data provided by the Civil Administration reflect that the Israeli government’s operational, organizational and moral bankruptcy.

“Land regulation and registration is a complex process that is the responsibility of the sovereign. Aside from the fact that the Palestinian Authority is treating Area C as its own sovereign territory – and there has been no Israeli response to speak of – the shameful inaction of the Israeli government to carry out land registration in Judea and Samaria is a moral failure. In essence, the government is making a statement through this inaction that it is not the sovereign in the area,” Deutsch said.

In 2019, Regavim exposed an internal Civil Administration document that outlined illegal Palestinian Authority land registration activity in Area C of Judea and Samaria, the portion of Judea and Samaria placed under full Israeli jurisdiction under the Oslo Accords.

According to this Civil Administration report, Palestinian Authority land registry efforts date back to at least 2015, and includes ownership inspection procedures, registration of purported ownership of the land in its official land registry, and parcellation of territorial blocks and individual plots of land – including property within the municipal boundaries of Jewish communities.

A report released in June 2017 exposed that “this is a phenomenon spread over thousands of dunams” and that the process “is led by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice and in particular by the Palestinian Land Authority, under the management of Nadim al-Brahami, with funding provided by various European countries.”

This article appeared on JewishPress.com

כ"ז אב התש"פ - 17 August 2020

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has been told that the Palestinians have taken over large swaths of Israeli-controlled land in Judea and Samaria while authorities dither on what action to take, Makor Rishon reported Monday.

Testifying before the committee, a representative of the pro-settlement Regavim presented mapping data they collected that does not correspond to the data of the Civil Administration.

“They [Civil Administration] are talking about locating 650 buildings, we found 3,500 illegal buildings built in 2020,” Meir Deutsch said. “Today there are about 69,000 illegal buildings in Area C,” which amounts to 30 to 40 percent of Area C.

Deutsch, whose organization monitors enforcement of the law in Judea and Samaria, showed that in Area A, which is under direct Palestinian control, there are many empty areas suitable for construction without the need for Israeli approval, but the Palestinians insist on building in Area C, which is under full Israeli control.

Regavim said the Palestinians are taking advantage of Israel’s non-enforcement and taking over land in Area C due to the decision-making vacuum as Israel took the last six months to prepare for the application of Israeli sovereignty to settlements in Judea and Samaria.

The sovereignty plan would have seen up to 30 percent of Judea and Samaria fall under direct Israeli rule, but last week it was indefinitely postponed as a condition for the impending establishment of diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, expected to happen at the White House in the coming weeks.

The committee was told that as early as 2017, the Civil Administration recommended a plan to register land in Judea and Samaria as a countermeasure to the registration proceedings initiated by the Palestinian Authority. Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked claims those plans got stuck with the prime minister.

It was revealed that the cabinet decided a year ago that action needed to be taken to thwart the PA’s plan to seize sections of Area C, but nothing was done.

“A common tactic of the Palestinian Authority is to build schools to facilitate a land grab,” Regavim tweeted, saying the Palestinians use large amounts of European funds provided for Palestinian construction in order to quickly put up buildings they call schools without building permits on lands not under their legal control.

The Palestinians then put students in the new school before legal action is taken to demolish the illegal structure, owing to the Israeli government dragging its feet on the legal procedures.

Israel not moving in immediately “makes it much harder for Israel to demolish. Political, international, media pressure works wonders,” Regavim said.

This article appeared on World Israel News