Resource: Inventing retroactive ‘solutions’ for land theft

In February 2012, the Netanyahu government established a committee to provide retroactive approval for illegally-constructed outposts in the West Bank.

The Levy Committee, headed by Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy, attempted to find a juridical solution to the growing number of petitions submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of Palestinian landowners demanding the state enforce its laws and demolish illegal construction on private land. According the Levy Report, the territories seized by Israel in 1967 are not considered “occupied,” and that legitimate legal tools exist for approving outposts constructed without permits, even if they were built on private Palestinian land.

A new report by Yesh Din reveals the ways in which the report was commissioned by the Israeli government in order to invent a retroactive “solution” for the problem of the illegal outposts. Adopting its recommendations, Yesh Din says, will serve to usurp privately owned Palestinian land, reward criminals who seized this land contrary to the law, and effectively eliminate Palestinians’ right to property.

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