Adalah: The Nazareth District Court's decision to uphold the Finance Minister's order from 1953 to confiscate the 200 dunams of land at issue is dangerous as it legitimizes the illegal seizure of land. While the state claims that the confiscation was necessary for ‘essential settlement and development needs,' the land in fact has never been used for such purposes and must be returned to its owners.”

On 9 May 2007, Adalah filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Israel against a decision of the Nazareth District Court to reject a lawsuit filed on behalf of approximately 200 Arab citizens of Israel regarding the ownership of the lands of Lajoun. The District Court rejected the claimants' main argument that the confiscation is fundamentally invalid and that the land must be returned to its original owners, because it has not been used for “essential settlement and development needs,” in accordance with the order issued by the Minister of Finance in 1953. The District Court also ordered the Justice Ministry to register the land in the name of the Development Agency, a state body.

The lands of Lajoun were previously part of Umm al-Fahem, the second largest Arab town in Israel, located in Wadi Ara in the center of the country. The 200-dunam plot, known as “plot 20420”, was confiscated, along with other plots of land totaling 34,600 dunams, on 15 November 1953. The land was expropriated following an order of then-Minister of Finance, Levi Ashkol, in accordance with his powers under Article 2 of the Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law – 1953 (hereafter the “Land Acquisition Law”) for essential settlement and development needs.

The District Court, in its decision delivered on 18 March 2007, focused on the interpretation of the term “settlement” as used in the confiscation order. It accepted the Development Agency's argument that it is possible to give very broad interpretations of this term, deciding that, “Settlement does not mean only building a house, but also any other usage required for citizens in Israel in general…” Thus, the Court decided that the uses to which the land has been put until today – a man-made forest containing an industrial facility belonging to the “Mekorot” water company – are compatible with the term “settlement.”

In the appeal, Adalah Attorneys Suhad Bishara and Adel Badir, and private Attorneys Walid Asliya and Tawfiq Jabareen, who are representing a group of the landowners, argued that the District Court had erred in deciding that planting a man-made forest falls within the definition of a “settlement needs.” They emphasized that the District Court's interpretation of “settlement needs” is broader than that contained in the Israeli Property Law, and is incompatible with the language of the Land Acquisition Law. They also argued that the District Court's interpretation violates the landowners' constitutional right to property, as guaranteed by the Basic Laws of Israel.

The District Court's interpretation of the term “settlement” also leads to unjust results and legitimizes the illegal seizure of land, contended the appellants, particularly given that the Land Acquisition Law, pursuant to which the confiscation order was issued, was enacted to ease and retroactively validate the state's seizure of large areas of land owned by persons forced to leave during the 1948 war.

The appellants further argued, on behalf of the landowners, that the fact that the land has not been used for “essential settlement and development needs,” during a period of over fifty years, confirms that the Finance Minister's order is, or was, inappropriate, or was issued for false or unacceptable reasons. In addition, even if the confiscation were declared legal, the state's failure to address the alleged essential settlement and development needs in the time since 1953 indicates that there is no need to construct residential settlements on the land in question. Thus, the public need is no longer valid and the land should therefore be returned to its owners.

C.A. (Civil Appeal) 4067/07, Jabareen, et al. v. The State of Israel, et al. (case pending)

 The Appeal (H)

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