Palestinian Objectors Press US Officials to Cancel Plans for US Embassy in Jerusalem on Confiscated Property
On 3 September 2024, three Palestinian descendants of the original landowners of the “Allenby Barracks” compound, a site where the US Government approved plans with Israeli authorities to build its new embassy in Jerusalem, held a meeting with United States Embassy officials. At the meeting in East Jerusalem, Azzam Abu Saud, Mounir Kleibo and Raja Khalidi followed up on previous legal actions to press Israeli planning authorities and the US Government to call off any plans to build an embassy compound on the proposed site, as they are in clear violation of their property rights. The State of Israel illegally confiscated the property, using the 1950 Israeli Absentees’ Property Law. This law was used by Israel widely to dispossess Palestinian refugees and internally-displaced Palestinians from their property in the years following the 1948 Nakba and again in 1967.
CLICK HERE to read more about the landowners’ attempt to challenge the plans for building the US Embassy in Jerusalem on their property
A group of Palestinian heirs to the land have already presented solid evidence of their ownership to the US Government in a letter sent by Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, in a letter sent in November 2022 to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the then US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides. Since then, the State Department has repeatedly claimed that it is still considering two different sites for the project, (“Allenby Barracks” and “Arnona”), and that a final decision will be made only after the approval process for both sites by Israeli planning authorities will conclude, and in the light of the “history of the sites”.
In January 2023, Adalah filed an objection with the Israeli planning authorities on behalf of 12 descendants of the original Palestinian landowners, including US citizens, Jordanian citizens, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem against the plan. The objection was rejected by the planning authorities, and the plans were finally approved on 29 September 2023. Subsequently, the plans for the Allenby site were confirmed by the Israeli planning authorities on 17 April 2024. Another group of descendants of the original owners, resident in Jordan, recently met the US Ambassador in Amman to explain the case against allocating this site to the planned US Embassy.
During the meeting in East Jerusalem, the objectors stressed that if the US were to select the site, this move would not only be in violation of international law, but would also be prejudicial to the legal private property rights of Palestinian owners, including a number of US citizens who retain their right to subsequent legal action in US courts if needed. They added that building the US embassy on this site would also amount to a renunciation of the established international and US position that the status of Jerusalem remains to be decided. The US officials confirmed that no decision has yet been taken. They added that the history of the site and that the arguments presented by the objectors will be fully reflected in their reporting on the meeting to the State Department and carefully considered in the government's eventual decision.
Azzam Abu Saud, Mounir Kleibo and Raja Khalidi commented after the meeting:
“The US Government continues to evade making a clear statement that it will not infringe on the property rights of landowners, some of whom are U.S. citizens. Beyond being a severe and blatant violation of the personal property rights of each of the Palestinian landowners, this omission also serves as an endorsement of Israel's ongoing violation of international law in East Jerusalem, and an approval of the criminal use of one of its most racist laws—the Absentees' Property Law. The Biden administration must cease its complicity with Israel’s war crimes and its illegal policies that are aimed at denying the Palestinians’ the right to self- determination.”
Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
