When Israel cannot acquire land on the West Bank by government order, Israeli extremists have resorted to the old tactic of buying houses and land from their Palestinian owners, frequently using false names to conceal the fact that the ultimate owner will be a radical Zionist group. Over this week, such a scheme came to light when radical Israelis moved into 35 apartments and houses in the Arab town of Silwan just outside occupied East Jerusalem, and this is part of a wider scheme to surround occupied Jerusalem with a solid ring of Israeli colonies.
The buyers had bought the individual houses from their Palestinian owners, sometimes legally and sometimes using Palestinian middlemen who made money from passing the property onto the incoming Israelis. This has created consternation amongst the Palestinians who know that over the decades, Israelis have frequently used such tactics to first build up a presence in an Arab neighbourhood, which they then turn into a formal Israeli area, demanding special Israeli police protection, finally turning it into a colony and evicting the nearby Palestinians to seek further expansion.
The floundering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rushed to strengthen the law that forbids Palestinians from selling or renting real estate “to an enemy state or one of its subjects”, which means Israelis. The sentence for this crime is hard labour for life. While it is fine to forbid these sales, there should also be more subtle laws that make it harder to pass on property to Israelis. It is important to stop this kind of creeping annexation of land as it seeks to destroy the remaining Palestinian communities.
