Palestine/Land Sale
Land-sale restrictions in Palestine have included threats and penalties for selling property to Israelis or Jews after the British Mandate. Jordanian legislation, Palestinian Authority criminal prosecutions and religious decrees arose in different jurisdictions and periods. For the earlier purchase history, see Jewish land purchases in Mandatory Palestine.
Jordan and the West Bank
A Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board response dated 10 November 1992 reported Amnesty International’s finding that about 100 people had been sentenced to death between 1973 and 1987 for land sales to Israeli nationals. Those sentences had been passed in absentia, and Amnesty had reported no executions for that offence. The Canadian response could not establish the subsequent status of the cases or law after Jordan severed its West Bank ties in 1988. The response establishes the reported sentences, but neither an execution nor the law currently in force.[1]
In 2001, Human Rights Watch reported that Jordan had repealed the 1973 law during the peace process with Israel, while the applicability of Jordanian land-sale laws in the West Bank remained disputed. It also recorded the Palestinian Authority attorney general’s 1997 threat to seek the death penalty for selling land to Jews, and arrests in 2001 of a judge, notary and lawyer allegedly involved in land sales to Israelis.[2]
Palestinian Authority warnings and sentences
On 1 April 2009, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reported that the Palestinian Authority’s Chief Islamic Judge, Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, had renewed a religious prohibition on selling property to Jews. The report distinguished the warning and fatwa from the possibility of prosecution for high treason. It also described a prohibition extending to agents, intermediaries and rentals.[3]
A 28 April 2009 sentence by a Palestinian military court in Hebron provides a separate example. Contemporary reports described Anwar Breghit’s conviction for treason in connection with a land sale to Israelis; the sentence required approval by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. A reported death sentence is not evidence that an execution took place. The ownership of the property was itself disputed in contemporary reporting.[4]
Petra: a reported proposal in 2015
A 28 December 2015 report by Gil Ronen concerned officials in Petra and proposed restrictions intended to prevent purchases by Jews, including non-Israeli Jews. It relied on Jordanian press reports relayed by a blog. The report described officials examining and strengthening restrictions amid changes to foreign-investment rules. That report alone does not establish that a blanket national ban on Jewish ownership was enacted, or describe Jordanian law today.[5]
Property rights and discrimination
For a libertarian, peaceful exchange should not become a crime because of a purchaser’s religion or nationality. The same principle requires a seller to possess the rights being sold and protects people against fraud and coercion. A state’s border, an owner’s title, a religious decree and a criminal penalty are distinct questions.
See also
References
- ↑ Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Information on the death penalty for selling land in the occupied territories to Israeli nationals under Jordan’s new position regarding the West Bank”, JOR12128, 10 November 1992; original Refworld record.
- ↑ Human Rights Watch, Justice Undermined: Balancing Security and Human Rights in the Palestinian Justice System, 2001, section on land-sale prosecutions.
- ↑ Khaled Abu Toameh, “PA: Death penalty for those who sell land to Jews”, The Jerusalem Post, 1 April 2009.
- ↑ “West Bank: Death Penalty for Land Sale”, The New York Times, 29 April 2009; “Palestinian handed death sentence”, BBC News, 29 April 2009.
- ↑ Gil Ronen, “Jordan tightens laws barring Jews from buying land”, Israel National News, 28 December 2015.
