TEL AVIV: A field of sand and scrub now hemmed in by concrete slabs poses a particular dilemma for Palestinians as they decide what to do with Gaza Strip land after Israel abandons its settlements. This small and troublesome patch of land was privately owned by Jews even before Israel’s creation in 1948. Today it is a part of the Kfar Darom Israeli settlement in Gaza. Soon the settlement will be gone and the Palestinian Authority will have to decide whether it should recognise a private Israeli claim.
On one hand the land, smack in the middle of a Palestinian redoubt like Gaza, is unlikely to make an attractive claim for a previous Jewish owner. It is also easy to overlook on a map because it has been part of a settlement since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.
On the other hand, Palestinian officials must consider their future land negotiations with Israel, during which they would like to show that their respect for private Jewish claims should be reciprocated. That may make it easier to demand respect for far larger Palestinian claims to land in what is now Israel.
“It is very important that Palestinian authorities deal with this issue properly from the very beginning even if they are talking about a small quantity of land,” said Ingrid Jaradat, head of the Palestinian Badil refugee advocacy group.
Although Israel has handed over land to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza before, this is the first time it will have evacuated settlements in those areas, so the issue of how to divide them up has never arisen before.
Several Palestinian officials said any documented Jewish ownership should be recognised, although it was not a top priority. But they also said it was premature to say if Jews have any legal claim today to land bought before 1948.
TINY AREA: One Palestinian property specialist said the land in question was about 55 acres (22.26 hectares) — less than a third of one per cent of the territory Israel will give up in Gaza. Israel also plans to give up four of 120 West Bank settlements.
A Jewish community first established itself there in 1946, but fled during the 1948 Middle East war when Egypt took the Gaza Strip. Israel founded a new settlement there after 1967.
The Palestinian Authority plans to set up a land tribunal to decide claims for the five percent of the settlement land expected to revert to private hands after Israel’s pullout.
The remaining 95 per cent will be government property.
Judges on the tribunal would rely on land registry records and private deeds to determine ownership. Unclaimed property known to be private may be put into a trust to be held until owners come forward, one official said.
Palestinian officials said they were uncertain of the legal status for a property that once belonged to Jews. For Israel, it is not an issue once it completes its plan to “disengage” from conflict with the Palestinians.
SYMBOLIC IMPLICATIONS: But how Palestinians handle pre-1948 Jewish property rights in Gaza might have symbolic implications for their own claims to swathes of land seized in Israel after the flight of 700,000 Palestinian refugees in war at the Jewish state’s founding.
Israel does not recognise Palestinian claims to that land.
Recognising Jewish land ownership could be unpopular among Palestinians, especially in Gaza, which has a high refugee population.
But Palestinians may also want to avoid setting precedents that may hurt them in the future — even if there is little sign of any quick start to negotiations on statehood let alone a resolution to decades of conflict.
Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that any Jews with private land claims may pursue them in Palestinian courts, though he was not aware of the details of the case in Gaza. Palestinians and the international community say Israeli settlements are illegal, though Israel disagrees.
Previous Palestinian positions in peace talks have leaned toward recognising individual Jewish titles to land bought in the West Bank and Gaza under British rule before 1948, one Palestinian official said, asking not to be named.
Jewish communities of varying sizes lived in the predominantly Arab West Bank and Gaza before 1948. Some had been there for centuries and others were more recent immigrants.
But the history of Jewish land ownership in British mandate Palestine, where tensions between Arabs and growing Jewish communities often led to clashes, is a sensitive issue.
—Reuters
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