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Dear Friends,
We are still pushing forward with our annual crowdfunding campaign and need your support!
Join us on Sunday December 19th at 8 PM JLM | 6 PM London | 1 PM EST for a discussion between Ir Amim's Executive Director, Yudith Oppenheimer, and acclaimed Haaretz journalist Amira Hass on the latest current events regarding settlement expansion, mass displacement, and tensions at Jerusalem's holiest sites.
Details and registration here.
In other breaking news from Jerusalem, Ir Amim is leading the way in exposing vast plans for the building of new settlements over the Green Line in Jerusalem via formal land registration procedures that the Israeli government has initiated for the first time since 1967. Through sustained monitoring and research, Ir Amim uncovered that under the guise of a procedure depicted for the ostensible "benefit" of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities are rather exploiting the process to underhandedly seize more land in East Jerusalem and expand Israeli settlement, which will lead to further Palestinian displacement and dispossession.
Noa Dagoni, Ir Amim's Coordinator of Policy Development, explains more in our latest Opinion piece, originally published in Haaretz in Hebrew. The translation is below.
Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday,
Ir Amim Staff
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The General Custodian "Unsettles" Residents of East Jerusalem
Noa Dagoni
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Last Wednesday (December 8), the Jerusalem Local Planning Committee recommended for deposit for objections a plan for the establishment of a new settlement/neighborhood for Jewish Israelis located across the Green Line in Jerusalem on the edge of the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa. Behind the unsettling plan for the new settlement/neighborhood ("Givat Hashaked") lies an even more alarming development on a much greater scale: a formal settlement of title and land registration procedure in East Jerusalem which is being spearheaded by the General Custodian which sits within the Ministry of Justice. It is no coincidence that three of the largest plans for new settlements in East Jerusalem are being promoted hand-in-hand with the settlement of title procedures in their area: in Atarot, Givat Hamatos, and now also in Givat Hashaked.
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The "Givat HaShaked" settlement plan is designated for the area marked in red with a purple circle around it on the northwestern edge of Beit Safafa
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The land settlement of title process in East Jerusalem is being promoted and funded within the framework of the 2018 Government Decision 3790 intended to reduce socio-economic disparities and improvement of economic development in East Jerusalem. Despite its misleading description, the settlement of title procedure in actuality serves as another mechanism for the expansion of Jewish settlement and state appropriation of Palestinian land in the city on an unprecedented scale. The settlement of title agenda set out within Decision 3790 is a dramatic shift in government policy – these procedures have been frozen in East Jerusalem since Israel's occupation and annexation in 1967, yet a target has now been set for full settlement of title and registration of all land in East Jerusalem by the end of 2025. This affects approximately 90% of the lands in East Jerusalem, which have not undergone a settlement of title process since 1967. Ayelet Shaked [the current Minister of Interior], in her role as Minister of Justice, literally praised this procedure– the fruit of her labors – as the de facto application of Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem.
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Under "ordinary" circumstances, a settlement of title process is indeed an essential tier of urban planning and economic development as it promotes transparency, clarity, and finality of property rights. But its promotion in East Jerusalem, in fact, directly undermines these very goals; it serves as an additional obstacle to equitable urban planning and, at worst, it jeopardizes the rights of a large portion of Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem to their lands and their homes.
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The view of Sheikh Jarrah, one neighborhood where land registration processes are endangering the residents' housing rights.
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Within the discriminatory legislative framework in the area of land rights in Israel, the 1950 Absentee Property Law takes the lead in exposing East Jerusalem residents to systematic dispossession through the settlement of title procedures. Any landowner who meets the convoluted and nebulous definitions of "absentee” and/or shares land with a relative who falls under this definition, faces the tangible threat that his/her land - in whole or in part – will undergo the process of settlement of title and ultimately be registered in the name of the Custodian of Absentee Property. It is not merely coincidence that the Custodian of Absentee Property is working alongside the General Custodian as part of the governmental team in charge of leading the settlement of title process (it should be noted that the Supreme Court heard today a petition submitted by Ir Amim and Sheikh Jarrah residents regarding the need to establish formal regulations to limit the General Custodian’s dubious activity). On the other hand, land whose Palestinians owners do not participate in the settlement of title process will automatically be registered as state land under the Settlement Ordinance – which is how Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem find themselves, once again, between a rock and a hard place.
In addition to the challenges inherent in the discriminatory legislative system, the way in which the settlement of title process is being implemented is no less alarming. Close monitoring of the issue reveals that settlement of title proceedings are often promoted with a deliberate lack of transparency, notably absent of the minimal notification required by law to affected residents which gives the settlement of title its legal validity.
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Today, the settlement of title is at various stages taking place in dozens of plots of land in East Jerusalem and has even been completed in a few of them. Between many of these plots, a clear thread has been drawn - the merging of interests of the state and those of settlers in properties formally undergoing settlement of title. This is certainly the case in Atarot, Givat Hamatos and now "Givat Hashaked" and likewise in Sheikh Jarrah and the Mount of Olives – both strategic targets for settler takeover; and the same is true for Neve Yaakov, French Hill and Ramot.
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Map of Greater Jerusalem.
Atarot is marked in red near the top of the map. Givat Hamatos is marked in red towards the bottom of the map.
Click image to enlarge.
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The names of the Palestinian neighborhoods that have become known for the widespread threat of displacement facing their communities – through eviction lawsuits, home demolitions and severe discrimination in urban planning – are just the tip of the iceberg of what such a systematic and exploitative settlement of title process would produce. This procedure must be stopped immediately, and in its place, proper residential development and urban planning in East Jerusalem must be promoted – exchanging its planning stranglehold with room for breathing.
The author is the Coordinator of Policy Development at Ir Amim.
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Want to learn more about Ir Amim's work? Watch our virtual discussions below:
- An Annexed Jerusalem: Settlements, Society, and Separation, featuring Ir Amim's Senior Field Researcher Aviv Tatarsky and Palestinian East Jerusalemite cultural leader Mahmoud Mouna.
- From "United" Jerusalem to Greater Jerusalem: Annexation 1967-2020, featuring acclaimed professor of policy, Menachem Klein, and East Jerusalemite civil society & social justice activist Nivine Sandouka.
- Ir Amim and Breaking the Silence - A City Annexed Together, featuring Breaking the Silence's Executive Director, Avner Gvaryahu, Ir Amim's Executive Director, Yudith Oppenheimer, and Hoqoqna - Our Rights' Executive Director, Nivine Sandouka.
- A Conversation with Prof. Naomi Chazan and Atty. Ziad AbuZayyad, featuring former Palestinian Authority minister, Atty. Ziad AbuZayyad, and former Israeli Knesset member Prof. Naomi Chazan, exploring the long-term effects of the Trump days and if we have better days ahead.
- Silwan & Sheikh Jarrah: Not a 'Real-Estate' Dispute, Ir Amim's virtual conference on measures of mass displacement of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.
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