Ofra Settlement, Israel – It reads like a standard real estate contract between a Zionist institution and an Israeli couple. But it offers a rare glimpse into the bureaucratic smoke screen that helps ensure a strong Jewish presence on lands claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.
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The document, which surfaced in a case before Israel’s Supreme Court, shows that the World Zionist Organization, acting as an agent of the Israeli government, took private Palestinian land in the West Bank and gave it to Jewish settlers, even though the state itself had declared the property off-limits to settlement.
The affair points to a chaotic mix of a government at odds with itself and involved in murky real estate deals fronted by one of the Zionist movement’s most respected organizations.
It’s not the first time such land deals have come under fire, but in the year since the case went to court, the political context has been overturned. President Barack Obama, in a departure from Bush administration policy, is pressing for a complete freeze in settlement development as a prelude to a new push for Mideast peace.
The contract authorized Netzach and Esther Brodt, a couple in their early 20s, to lease land in the settlement of Ofra where their home and eight others are in contention.
When Israeli human rights groups and Palestinians who claim to own the land went to the Supreme Court to get the houses torn down, they went with the knowledge that demolition orders had been issued against construction at the site.
The court gave the state two weeks to explain itself, during which time the settlers hastily completed construction of the homes. Then, in another reversal, the Defense Ministry froze the demolition plan, and left the case no closer to resolution.
The affair also threw a spotlight on the World Zionist Organization, an international body founded more than 100 years ago that promotes Jewish education and immigration to Israel.
After Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, the government began settling Jews in the captured territories. To avoid complications stemming from international law, it turned to the WZO, setting up a special settlement division not technically part of the government but entirely funded by it.
The maneuver has served to cloud the issues and confuse the finger-pointing when uncomfortable questions arise.
Such questions had already arisen in 2005, when a government-commissioned report accused the settlement division of complicity in diverting funds and confiscating West Bank land to put up some of the more than 100 “outposts” — small wildcat settlements — that settlers have built, some on privately held Palestinian land.
They had no government sanction, yet a slew of former Cabinet ministers, settler leaders and lawmakers have confirmed that they went up with the full knowledge of the state, and their removal is viewed by the U.S. and others as a first step toward a broader rollback of settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The case before the Supreme Court involves not a flimsy “outpost,” but Ofra, a full-blown settlement of 3,000 Jews, 15 miles north of Jerusalem.
The contract shows that the settlement division authorized the Brodts to lease land allocated to Ofra even though Israel’s Justice Ministry had declared it to be private Palestinian property.
“Here you have proof” of a settlement deal violating Israel’s own rulings, said Talia Sasson, the former chief state prosecutor who wrote the 2005 report.
Defying international objections, Israel has allowed nearly 300,000 Jews to settle in the West Bank plus some 180,000 in Jerusalem’s Arab sector, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital. In a speech last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “We have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements,” but he gave no commitment to stop expanding existing settlements as the White House has demanded.
Land deals between settlers and the settlement division are usually shrouded in confidentiality and the contract with the Brodts is a hard-to-find example.
The settlers maintain that secrecy is essential to protect Palestinian sellers from retribution. The Ofra purchase is such a case, they told the court. Ofra’s lawyer, Yaron Kosteliz, said proof that the land was bought from Palestinians has been given to the state confidentially to protect the sellers.
Yesh Din, one of the Israeli rights groups that went to court, says the land was stolen.
“It’s like I was going to sell a house that didn’t belong to me,” said Dror Etkes, Yesh Din’s settlement expert. “It’s an international organization that is, simply put, stealing land.”
The government referred questions about the contract to the World Zionist Organization, which referred the questions back to the government. The Justice Ministry refused to discuss the case because it is under litigation.
The Defense Ministry, named as a respondent in the court petition, did not respond to an e-mail and calls seeking comment.
Another respondent, the military’s Civil Administration in the West Bank, said only that “there are differences of opinion pertaining to the ownership of the property.”
“The issue is currently under discussion in the Supreme Court that will ultimately decide on this issue,” it added in a written response to questions from the AP.
The Justice Ministry confirmed to the court that the land was owned by Palestinians, that a construction freeze had been ordered there a year earlier, and that a final demolition order for all nine houses had been issued.
“The construction was done in violation of stop-work and demolition orders,” the state said in papers presented to the court.
As is often the case, however, the state was not speaking with one voice. Defense Minister Ehud Barak suspended the demolition order in December because of broader questions about the legal status of settlement activity in Ofra.
Kosteliz, Ofra’s lawyer, said the settlement never received the demolition order. The Brodts said they were unaware of it when they signed the contract with the settlement division. They said the settlement was in charge of the construction.
The houses were near completion when the legal appeal was filed, and settlers hurried to finish construction during the two weeks the state was given to respond to the petition. They even won a rare and controversial dispensation from Ofra’s rabbi, Avi Gisser, to allow construction to continue on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, using non-Jews as workers.
Palestinians and Israeli right groups say the case is nothing unusual, and that settlements are often built on private Palestinian land.
Yesh Din says it has seen a classified database prepared for the Defense Ministry and that it shows that much of the construction at Ofra and in many other settlements is on land registered to Palestinian owners.
its our land-finito
Private Palestinian land in Israel, the land of G-d that he gave to the Jewish people? What’s that?
When the arabs take land and make it their own, they have an unwritten law that no non-muslim can ever claim it as theirs, making it sacred to Islam. And if such land ever reverts to non-muslims, the arabs put that on their list of land to reclaim via jihad. They do not recognize, that countries involved in war sometimes ‘win’ land and remake borders. That being, if you remember once upon a time, they ruled over much of the world, and they are determined to do it again – in our day. IN OUR CASE, we were attacked, fought back and as a result, we conquered Land that davka originally belonged to Jews as an inheritance from Hashem. So, nu, why do we have to return our land to non-Jews? I believe we have a moral and legal right and obligation to free the Land of amelekim-palestinians. I don’t believe that we have to listen to the world, the UN, The Hague or any other antisemitic group that wants to lord over the Jews. Once and for all, we have to stand up, courteously, and explain that we are the rightful guardians of this Land given to Avraham Avinu, and that the inheritance goes from Yitzchak to Yaakov and his descendants (not to Yishmael), and that is what we intend to do — guard it from Jew-haters!
“took private Palestinian land in the West Bank and gave it to Jewish settlers, even though the state itself had declared the property off-limits to settlement”.
Check past legal documents regarding the British Mandate prior to 1948. The area of Yehuda & Shomron called the West Back (of Jordan) was never given as a sovereign entity to anyone, not Jordan and not Israel. There are specific lands that were purchased from Arabs with money and a deed transferred hands, where Jews then built homes. These Arabs now deny the land purchases due to death threats on their lives.
Personally this article which is full of falsehood and inaccuracies should be deleted from this site.
B”H someone has the right ideas.
I strongly believe in the rule of law!
A country can’t function with rampant illegal construction!
Ever illegal construction must be demolished!
Enough with the double standards, no one shall be given special priveleges! You build a house illegaly in anywhere in the world, it would be demolished. Why should any group be given prefedential treatment?!
Our unequvocal demand is, the Goverment of Israel should demolish every home, outpost town built without proper goverment consent. And it shall do so in an unracist, indiscrimanate manner.
As soon as they shall be done demolishing the 2500 or more (anyone has the exact numbers?) haphazard unsafe structures built in Arab towns and villages – in Israel pre 1967 and post 1967, built without the proper relevant permits, they should definetly start eyeing the 9 structures mentioned in the article.
Enough with this racist selective enforcement of “the rule of law”!
Yesh din is absolutely correct, there is a din alright; dinoh shel gehenom for yesh din members and all other horrible traitors that fight tooth and nail for every imagined slight to some arab crook, doing tremendous damage to yidden, while they don’t give a toss for jewish rights
Yishuv Ha’aretz is a great mitzvah! Chazak u’varuch! May H’ bless these courageous families who are reclaiming the Land that H’ has promised his Children, as stated, “Banim atem l’Hashem Elokeichem.”