Ministers back bill letting Jews buy land in Judea and Samaria

Residents of Judea and Samaria have circumvented the law until now by opening companies with the Civil Administration and purchasing land through those companies.

By JNS

Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday approved government backing for a Knesset bill that would allow Jews to directly purchase land in Judea and Samaria without going through the Civil Administration.

Hebrew media is characterizing it as a step on the way to the annexation of Judea and Samaria.

Until now, only citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan could purchase land directly in Judea and Samaria. Jordan, which occupied Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967, had applied to the region the “The law on renting and selling immovable property to Foreigners,” aka the “Jordanian Law.”

It prohibits the purchase of land in Judea and Samaria by foreigners who do not have Jordanian citizenship.

Israel has not annexed Judea and Samaria, instead setting up a body called the Civil Administration in 1981 to replace the military government that ruled there since Israel liberated the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The Civil Administration has maintained a combination of Ottoman, Jordanian and British Mandate laws in the region.

The bill would repeal the “Jordanian Law.”

The new legislation states, “This reality, which sets limits on the right of a citizen of the State of Israel to acquire rights in real estate in the Judea and Samaria region only because of being an Israeli citizen, is unacceptable.

“Therefore, it is proposed to establish in primary legislation that every person will be allowed to acquire rights in real estate in the Judea and Samaria region, as in any other place,” it said.

Previous Israeli efforts to cancel the “Jordanian Law” have failed. In 2022, Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected a petition by the Regavim group to change the law. The court said it is a political decision and legislation is required to change it.

Residents of Judea and Samaria have circumvented the law until now by opening companies with the Civil Administration and purchasing land through those companies.

Sponsoring the proposed law are members of the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus, a group of Israeli parliament members whose mission is to strengthen Israel’s hold on Judea and Samaria.

Forty members of the caucus signed onto the bill, which they say is “correcting a historical injustice and stopping racial discrimination.”

“While the Palestinians are shouting about fake ‘apartheid,’ right here in Israel, Jordanian apartheid against Jews is taking place,” said MK Moshe Solomon of the Religious Zionism Party and one of the heads of the Land of Israel Caucus.

The law will fix an upside-down situation in which a Jewish state has permitted “racist discrimination against Jews to exist since the British Mandate,” he said.