Property for sale in Palestine

The Palestinian territories are composed of two discontiguous regions, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose final status has yet to be determined. The territories, which were originally contained within the British Mandate of Palestine, were captured and occupied by Jordan and by Egypt in the late 1940s, and captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. "Palestinian territories" is one of a number of designations for these areas.

15 September 1999—The U.S. government supports the return of stolen property to its rightful owners by backing the efforts of the Israeli-endorsed World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). This support is in compliance with international law, U.S. law, and the principles of private property on which U.S. law was founded. Yet the U.S. government violates this position by supporting Israel’s refusal to return Palestinian property, which Israel seized in violation of UN resolutions and international law.

Restitution is based on the principle of the inviolability of private property dating back to the 1251 Magna Charta. That document prohibited the outright confiscation of enemy property, emphasizing that private property must be protected by law, not power, to facilitate trade and investment. Otherwise, investments would be made only in powerful countries, thus restricting trade. Over the centuries, the practice of confiscation increasingly was denounced as a relic of barbarism, and the immunity of enemy private property was established.

Following Israel’s establishment in 1948, some 750,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their land and homes to points outside the new state, while approximately 230,000 Palestinians remained inside. Israel moved quickly to confiscate the private and communal property of both groups.

In December 1948, the Israeli Minister of Finance issued the “Emergency Regulation Relative to Property of Absentees,” which was regularly renewed until it was passed the following year by the Knesset. Called the “Law of the Acquisition of Absentees’ Property,” it defined the status of vacant property and transferred its control to an Israeli government-appointed “custodian.” In this law, absentees were defined as individuals (or corporations) who were nationals of Arab states at the time, residents in such states, or non-Jewish Palestinians who had left their homes in Palestine for places outside Palestine before 1 September 1948.