Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently declared a large amount of land in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley to be 'state land'. He has made several such declarations since taking office and claims that they are intended to strengthen Israeli presence in those areas. What is the process, and how will it help?
Background
All three areas are currently administered under a combination of laws derived from the Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli military and civil legal systems. This, combined with the incomplete state of land registries under some of these governments and the confusion caused during Israel's many wars, has left the status of a significant portion of land in doubt.
In the years following the Six Day War, Israel suspended a British system to register new titles for the land in these areas. Initially, Israel declared that all land taken in the Six Day War would be assumed to be captured assets of the Jordanian government, and would be transferred to the control of the IDF's emerging military government of the region. These included land that Jews had controlled until Israel's War of Independence, at which point they were captured by Jordan and transferred to the custodianship of a Jordanian officer appointed to manage enemy assets.
The IDF's policy of distributing land by military order continued until 1979 when the seizure of two Arab villages to build Elon Moreh sparked a Supreme Court case that ultimately required the state to create an alternative and forbade the use of military orders to seize land. Israel began instead drawing on an Ottoman land code stating that land that had remained fallow for a set period became the property of the empire.
A stringent interpretation of this code became the basis for claiming that the land belonged to the state of Israel rather than to a private owner or local authority. Similarly, it was the impetus for Israel to begin rejecting local registries of the land as proof of ownership, such as the recognition of village chieftains (mukhtars) or local tax registries. This meant that land that was not registered already under the British system would be available to transfer to the state.
This Ottoman policy has also become the basis for the use of the term 'declaration' in Israel. As international law prohibits the seizure of private land, Israel claims that the land is not being seized; rather, the extant law turns it over to the state, which merely announces that the change in ownership has occurred.
As part of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was given the responsibility for registering land in the newly-defined Areas A and B. Dmage to PA buildings and the loss of personnel during the Intifadas have impinged its ability to do so. The accuracy of its registries remains a matter of dispute.
In an attempt to abide by an international law forbidding an occupier from seizing private property, Israel refrains from seizing privately owned Palestinian land. There have even been cases where it demolished towns built on Palestinian land, such as that of Amona.
Process
The Civil Administration represents the Israel Land Authority in the region and is responsible for processing requests to declare state land via the Supervisor of Governmental and Abandoned Property in Judea and Samaria. Although the process is an internal one, it generally includes the state presenting the Supervisor with a map of the parcel to be declared, following which a warning is sent to the chieftains of communities within the parcel. The communities generally have 45 days in which to appeal the claim before Israel acquires the land and can legally redistribute it.
Minister Smotrich's titles include those of a minister within the defense ministry, and among the sections of the ministry under his control as opposed to that of the Defense Minister has been the Civil Administration, making such declarations ultimately his purview.
This process differs from that of recognition of new townships, as happened in the case of Evyatar. Although the land in Evyatar was declared state land, the legitimization of a town falls under the Interior Ministry, not the Defense Ministry.
Implications
Once land is declared state land, it can be rezoned by the government. Due to a military order regarding the governance of the region, it cannot be sold to private individuals, so the government instead allocates it to either corporations or local authorities for the development of new towns or the extension of existing ones. These companies include Amana, recently sanctioned by the USA for its part in such activities.
The most recent parcel has been divided among several towns, in some cases nearly doubling the land available for Israeli use. It has been hailed as a gift to Israeli development of Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley, and Minister Smotrich has stated that he intends to continue the process as part of his efforts against the establishment of a Palestinian state.