Defense Minister Ezer Weizman denied today that there has been any change in the government’s land policy on the West Bank. Addressing the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, he referred to reports in both the Israeli and local Arabic press that the government is planning to confiscate land owned by West Bank Arabs living abroad in order to enlarge Jewish settlements in the occupied territory. Some sources said certain lands were already seized.
Weizman did not elaborate on those reports except to say they were incorrect. But a Military Government officer has been appointed “to check the allegations that there has been a change in policy.” The Israel Lands Administration which is responsible for administering State-owned land, claimed the only change has been to crack down on misused or forged powers of attorney assigned to West Bank Arabs by relatives or friends who have taken up residence in foreign countries.
Hitherto, the absentee owners were recognized as the legal owners of the land provided that they were not living in Arab countries. Those who fled to Arab lands were considered to have abandoned their property and it was taken over by the State.
Members of the Knesset committee were critical of the government’s land policies, mainly because they seem inconsistent and confused. Yosef Tamir, a Likud MK, demanded that the government make clear decisions on land matters, make them public and stick by them.
He charged that with respect to land, there were now three “governments” –the democratically elected one, the “right wing group which distorts the process of reason by which the government should abide,” an allusion to the militant Gush Emunim, and the left wing which, he charged, is blowing up the issue out of proportion to the detriment of Israel’s image abroad.
WILL LOOK INTO GUSH NEEDS
The reports of a change in government land policy coincided with reports that the Defense Ministry is considering the large-scale expropriation of Arab land to increase the acreage of Gush Emunim settlements around Jerusalem and in Samaria. Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Zipori visited the Gush settlements last week and reportedly promised them to look into their needs.
Gush spokesmen say they are negotiating with the government for the establishment of an urban center to be called Shchem adjacent to Nablus, the largest Arab city on the West Bank. Gush settlers are still at Shilo, in central Samaria, despite a government order several months ago that they evacuate the site.
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