The Jewish National Fund has been designated by a special act of the Israel parliament as the principal body authorized to purchase land holdings of the Arabs who fled the country during the recent Arab-Jewish hostilities, as well as the property belonging to enemy Germans, according to a cable received today from Jerusalem by the J.N.F. office in New York.
Under the new law, the Jewish National Fund will be enabled to acquire title to tracts of land constituting the bulk of the country’s entire area, including entire towns and villages. Not more than 100,000 dunams of urban property may, according to the provisions of the bill, be sold to private buyers. The action of the parliament puts an end to the current talk about Israel’s plans to seize the Arab land without due compensation.
According to the advices from Jerusalem, the sums which the J.N.F. pays for the Arab-held land will be deposited with the Israel Treasury to be applied, at some later stage in the negotiations with the Arabs, to a compensation fund agreed upon by Israel and the Arab states.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
