Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger has weighed in with a lengthy opinion sharply negating Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s proposed land privatization scheme – but is it too little, too late?

Netanyahu is strongly pushing his land-reform program, a package that enjoys wide support as a means of reducing the seemingly-endless bureaucracy that has overtaken any aspect of life having to do with purchasing, selling, leasing or building on land in Israel.

However, one important aspect is the subject of strong opposition – namely, his intention to privatize land owned by the Jewish nation and make it available for sale to private elements.

At the behest of MK Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home), Rabbi Metzger prepared a detailed, 20-page Halakhic [Jewish legal] opinion, in which he wrote that Netanyahu’s reforms “violate the Torah’s commandments that ‘the Land must never be sold forever’ and ‘not to allow foreign elements to gain proprietorship over the Land.’”

After going into the precise Halakhic categorizations of resident Muslims, Christians, idol-worshipers and friendly foreigners known as “gerei toshav,” Rabbi Metzger writes, “Our country is still in a state of war, and we must therefore fear that hostile elements might seek to take advantage of the opportunity to buy lands privately, and will offer very high prices – something that will sorely test Jewish land-owners [Jews who currently lease land from the State – ed.]. Economic elements from enemy countries are likely to help [Arab] purchasers… This reform could lead, Heaven forbid, to the sale of parts of our Land to hostile foreigners.”

MK Orlev said in response, “It turns out that selling state-owned lands is not only an abuse of national treasures, as well as Zionist and national wantonness, but is also unacceptable from a Halakhic and Jewish standpoint.”

Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a member of the board of “Hebrew Nature,” an organization that promotes Jewish-environmentalist responsibility in Israel, wrote a recent article entitled, “They’re Selling Us.” Rabbi Cherlow wrote that what he calls the “great robbery of Jewish lands” will “endanger the character of the Jewish State, return us to the days of feudalism, and will subjugate the future of open areas to narrow economic interests.”

The land-reform package is included in the Likud’s coalition agreements with the Shas and Jewish Home parties. However, while Shas is hesitant to break this agreement, the Jewish Home is not, and has been working strongly against it. The United Torah Judaism party tends to favor it in the hope that it will ease the housing crunch for young hareidi-religious couples.

“The only hope, in terms of Shas,” says a leading opponent of the plan, “is to have Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef come out against it. However, he has already said that one of the major objections – that the land may not be sold forever – does not apply when the Jubilee laws are not in effect, such as nowadays. But he has yet to explain his position on the prohibition of lo techanem‘ - Do not allow them proprietorship over the Land.’”

Regarding the six MKs of the UTJ party, the source said, “It is hoped that Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the leading hareidi Torah authority, will somehow be approached on this issue and issue a ruling on the gravity of the Biblical ban lo techanem.”

"Throwing Out National Lands Together with Bureacracy"

Uri Bank, a Knesset candidate in the last elections, represents the National Union party on the board of directors of the Jewish National Fund and is a leading opponent of the land reform. “All agree on the need for a major reform in the Israel Lands Authority (ILA),” Bank told Israel National News. “Unfortunately, Netanyahu feels that this means not only doing away with the ILA, but also privatizing the 80% of the country’s land that is controlled by the ILA.”

Adi Arbel, of The Institute for Zionist Strategies, explained that the immediate effect of such a change would be that “whoever is currently leasing any land from the ILA would become, after paying a certain amount, the immediate owners of the land. This means, first and foremost, churches and the land that they lease in built-up areas such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.”  

Strong Left-Wing Opposition

Bank noted that the opposition is across-the-board: “MKs such as Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) of the National Union, Orlev, Danny Danon of the Likud, Shelly Yechimovitch of the left flank of Labor, Chaim Oron of Meretz, and even Arab MKs, are all against the plan.” Asked why the left-wing opposes the plan, Bank explained, “They are against privatization in general, fearing that real estate sharks and foreign or local millionaires will buy up the land, thus hurting the little guy and forcing prices sky-high. If land is privatized, the average young couple in Israel will simply not be able to purchase an apartment.”

Vote is Scheduled for Next Week

The Knesset vote is scheduled for a week from now, after the vote on the national budget this week. “This was our only achievement so far,” Bank said, “having it separated from the budget deliberations. But I don’t know if that will help us so much…”

There is yet a chance that the vote will be further delayed, however. It is connected to the fact that the government is trying to have the Jewish National Fund's city lands included in the deal by “trading” Negev lands for the urban areas. Though the JNF board approved the deal by a 15-6 vote, three court cases are currently pending against this deal. Bank, Arbel and the others hope that the government will not want to pass the law without being sure that the JNF lands are included. 

Coins in the Blue and White Boxes

Trying to do his part to ensure that Jewish national lands remain Jewish, Bank is opposing the JNF trade from within – and from without; he has filed one of the suits against it: “We have the historic responsibility of preserving our national lands and keeping them Jewish. These lands were bought by the Jewish people, individually and collectively, by the pennies and dimes that Jews around the world placed in their little blue-and-white boxes over the past century.” Specifically about the proposed trade, Bank says, “We don’t have the moral right to trade top-quality city land for low-quality Negev land; it might bring cash now, but in the end, we will lose.”

Supreme Court Option

Opponents of the privatization of the Jewish Nation’s holdings in the Land of Israel also say that if they fail and the law is passed, they will file a suit in the Supreme Court to the effect that the law voids a constitutional-type Basic Law regarding nationally-owned lands.