borrowed list
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| Amona, Samaria residents now near Shilo looking at land to build on Amon was a king of Judah who reigned from 642 bCE to 640 BCE. HIs father was king Manasseh and he ruled for 2 years before being killed by conspirators. I don't know if that's where their name came from or not. "Amona, which was built on land purchased from Palestinian Authority (PA) Arabs, has been deemed illegal by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has rejected the validity of the deeds to the land provided by the town’s founders. |
Nadene Goldfoot
Jordan held Judah and Samaria (West Bank) from 1948 to 1967
June 11th. )
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| Israel's Ministry of Defense had to forcefully dismantle Amona, a village near Ofra. They plan to build a replacement near Shilo of 139 housing units. Shilo is 25 miles north of Jerusalem in the mountains of Ephraim. The Ark and Tabernacle were kept there during the period of Judges. |
The village of Amona has been dismanatled by the Israeli authorities
after these past 20 years of living there. . The village of 40 Jewish families
had prior but illegal claims on it, land that sat on top of a bald mountain in
Samaria (northern part of Judea-Samaria "West Bank.") . Israel does try hard to
follow the law. I wonder what American lawyers would have said in defense of
these families. Two sides of the debate over this decision are below. It's a conundrum for lawyers.
1. Jordan had no right to parcel out lands When the Amona case first reached
the Supreme Court, a representative of the land registrar for the IDF
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) argued that
despite the fact that the location was a bald and abandoned mountaintop, there
existed documented parcels of land which had been registered by the Jordanian
government as belonging to area sheiks and clans. However, as an invading and
occupying power, Jordan had no right to award these lands. Jordan’s rule over
the "West Bank" was not recognized by the vast majority of UN member states save
for the UK and Pakistan, and so this local Arab "ownership" is based on a
lie.
2. Only 0.5% of the Amona land is registered to private Arab owners. After the
Supreme Court had ruled in their favor, anti-Israeli NGO Yesh Din, which has
been at the forefront of the Lawfare attacks on the Jewish State, decided to sue
for damages over the years of denied use of the parcels in question. The problem
is that while the Supreme Court does not entertain evidence, lower courts do,
and in Jerusalem Magistrate Court it was discovered that out of the nine Arab
petitioners, seven own land that is entirely outside the Amona perimeter, and
have had no problem working their land had they been so inclined. The remaining
two owned only a sliver – about half an acre altogether, out of the 125 acres of
the Amona territory – less than .5%. The remaining land is registered to names
of non-existent people who do not appear in the 1967 census.
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| Arresting young woman unwilling to leave Amona Moving out of one's home is never easy. Being forced is worse still. |
3. COGAT didn’t differentiate between the parcels with known and unknown
ownership Despite the above facts, the COGAT prosecution related to the parcels
whose owners are unknown as being privately owned, declaring that some 15 acres
in the southern part of the settlement belonged to real private owners. They
then told the court that, in fact, there was no difference between the various
parts of the community and that the half-acre that became 15 acres was, in
effect, indistinguishable from the rest, and the entire community had to come
down.
4. The Settlement Arrangements Act does not violate international law
Regarding the Settlement Arrangements Act, which the left, as well as senior
Netanyahu cabinet officials, are saying violates international law, former Tel
Aviv University president and international law expert Prof. Yoram Dinstein has
argued that "when an occupier appropriates the power to legislate in an occupied
territory, said power belongs to the occupying state and not to one of its
organs (COGAT)." In a recent article, Prof. Dinstein has shown how international
law is entirely indifferent regarding the particular mechanics of legislation in
an occupied zone, be it the local general or be it the government that posted
said general in said zone.
5. International law compels Israel to care for the rights of Jewish and Arab
resident. Another popular argument against the Settlement Arrangements Act is
that it violates international law because it sanctions the impounding of Arab
owned land for the sake of a Jewish community. However, it has been noted that
international law compels the occupier to care for the needs of all the
civilians under its rule, Jews and Arabs alike, and the right of a government to
expropriate private property for public use, with proper payment of compensation
(eminent domain) is inherent in exerting such care.
6. The Settlement Arrangements Act is consistent with the pre-67 law in Judea
and Samaria This one is quite interesting. Unbeknownst to many, the Settlement
Arrangements Act is consistent with the legal systems that were in use in Judea
and Samaria before 1967. Both Ottoman law and Jordanian law determine that in a
case where a man built and planted in good faith land belonging to another,
should the value of the construction exceed the value of the land, the land
owner is compelled to receive compensation.
7. Israel legislates retroactively when needed. Another argument against the
Settlement Arrangements Act is that it retroactively alters a court ruling. But
the state of Israel regularly legislates retroactively, as in the amendment that
reversed many hundreds of court sentences of Arab terrorists, to facilitate the
Gilad Shalit deal with Hamas.
8. The Settlement Arrangements Act is not unconstitutional
Finally, the most crucial argument against the Settlement Arrangements Act is
that it is unconstitutional – the constitution in this case being Israel’s Basic
Laws. Setting aside the paradox whereby one Knesset law is inapplicable in the
territories while the same Knesset’s basic laws are applicable – does Israel’s
basic law really dictate that 40 families with their 200 children who have lived
in Amona for 20 years be evicted to satisfy the alleged rights of two claimants
who own less than .5% of the land and have never lived there? Has the court
become so immoral as to be the enemy of its constituents without any
foundation?
Where is King Solomon when we need him? Maybe he could find a fair ruling.
Netanyahu now has decided to build 4,000 homes in Judea-Samaria, and Amona is something he
does not want to have to repeat again. That it had to be dismantled is one of
the reasons he is going ahead with the building to my understanding. .When you read that his 4,000 is on land owned by private people, etc., understand through this Amona case that it is not at all as easy to distinguish as what would happen in the USA or other countries. Israel has a 3-ply law, layers of different laws to work through to come to a decision.
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Nadene Goldfoot
