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Part Five - The Economic Plan
Settlement and strategic development in Judea and Samaria (1/2)
The Heartland
Judea and Samaria are wide areas of land, with a total area of about a quarter of the State of Israel, which is sparsely populated today relative to the very crowded coastal area. In addition, unlike the Galilee and the Negev, Judea and Samaria enjoy a convenient proximity to the commercial, employment and population centers of the country - the Dan Region and Jerusalem. These simple economic facts are secondary in importance to the fact that Judea and Samaria are the cradle of the nation, the heart of the land and the root source of Jewish identity in the Land of Israel, but here, in the economic section, we will focus on the economic aspects.
Zehut believes that implementation of the economic policy detailed in this section and the political plan detailed in the political section will lead to the realization of the tremendous potential of the hills of Judea and Samaria in the areas of housing, infrastructure, traffic and commerce - a potential that has been wasted for fifty years.
The damage caused by treating Judea and Samaria as occupied territory
It is customary in Israel for the discussion on Judea and Samaria to be conducted mainly on the political level, and as a result, the economic context has been neglected. The fact that the Israeli government never applied sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, did not regard these areas as an integral part of the state, and continued to act as a temporary occupier, has caused great economic damage to the region[34] and to the state in general, stemming from excessive interference of Israeli governments and their lack of responsibility for the situation, which were expressed in uncertain policy. In this chapter we will address these economic failures and present the solutions to them.
Land and ownership
Historically, most of the lands in these areas were held by the British Mandate government[35] and later by the Jordanian monarchy. The other part was privately owned by Arabs and a not inconsiderable part of them belonged to Jews, but the documents to that effect were destroyed.[36] After the Six Day War, possession of public lands was transferred from the Jordanian government to the Israeli government.
In the beginning, the Israeli government did very little to clarify the issue of land ownership in Judea and Samaria, in part because the declared policy was non-settlement and waiting for negotiations in which Judea and Samaria would be returned to the Arab states, except for certain areas necessary for strategic security reasons. This approach of military use of the land led to expropriation policies for security needs, in the wake of which the Jordan Valley settlements were established at the initiative of the Labor governments. Even when the settlement dam was breached and settlements began to be established in Samaria, this was done as part of expropriation of land for security needs, which was blocked by the Elon Moreh case.[37]
Only then, after more than a decade, did Israel begin to map Judea and Samaria in order to declare them state land. Thus, about one million dunams of land were declared state land, in which almost all Jewish settlements were gradually established by direct government decisions, with the land allocated by lease.
Private land and private property
Since the future of the entire region has been shrouded in uncertainty since the victory of the war to this day, Israeli governments have imposed severe restrictions by directly interfering in land and real estate transactions in Judea and Samaria, far beyond what they do within the Green Line. As a result, The purchase of land and structures in Judea and Samaria has become a process that ranges from difficult to impossible from an administrative point of view, requiring the approval of the Minister of Defense for the actual execution of the transactions - an almost incomprehensible reality for those who live in the territory under the sovereignty of the State of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority and its laws
Following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, a new situation was created, in which some 40% of the area of Judea and Samaria, which is the majority of the area desired for settlement, has become completely inaccessible to commercial trade in land and real estate under the laws of the Palestinian Authority. The punishment imposed by the Palestinian Authority on anyone who sells property or land to Jews is death - a punishment that has been carried out many times and in recent years has been transformed into torture and unlimited imprisonment.
Under such conditions, in which there is no clear state ownership of land and there is no possibility of private trade under stable and reasonable conditions, all economic activity surrounding real estate and land is in deep freeze.
Distribution of lands by the Jordanian government
Near the end of the Jordanian rule in Judea and Samaria, King Hussein tried to stabilize his weak rule in the region by means of division distribution of state land to Mukhtars and those loyal to his rule. The Government of Israel has so far treated this distribution as valid and land that was registered in this manner as private land. As part of the process of enactment of the Authorization Law, Israel may even grant this land distribution legal validity.
Zehut objects in principle to the recognition of this distribution, based on its conception of the Jordanian occupation regime that preceded the Six-Day War as a foreign and illegitimate government,[38] with no legal significance to its decisions regarding the distribution of the land. In the view of Zehut, the legitimate criterion for private ownership is the proven and continuous use of the land, and not this illegitimate distribution. If the only proof of ownership of any land that is not cultivated or inhabited is based on this Jordanian distribution, the land will be considered state land.
State lands and the establishment of settlements
The application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the implementation of Zehut's plan for state-owned land will open the land market in Judea and Samaria to Jews. Zehut has no doubt that when the lands in Judea and Samaria become available for private purchase under simple conditions, most of them will be purchased by Jews, both because of the national importance of the lands of Judea and Samaria, and also because these lands are attractive to the Israeli populace that is crowded into the central plains.
Zehut believes that it is not the role of the state to establish settlements and to plan them, as has been the custom in Israel in recent decades (with regard to Jews only - it should be noted). In the new reality, Jews who wish to establish a community will have to buy land from its owners (Jewish or Arab) and establish a community with their own money and without government involvement. The State of Israel will not "build in the territories," as happens today, rather, the People of Israel that will inherit its land.
[34] Including a severe blow to the Arab residents, whose situation today could have been much better.
[35] Historically, it is important to note that ownership of "state lands" in Israel was something that Britain "inherited" from the Islamic caliphate, in its various incarnations, which "inherited" it from the Roman Empire, which "inherited" it from the Jewish Hasmonean state. It is our own country that has returned to us.
[36] For example, the Nablus Tabu (land registry) archive was torched during the Six-Day War in order to prevent Jewish claims of ownership over significant parts of the area.
[37] It was then determined that private land in Judea and Samaria should not be expropriated for the purpose of establishing civilian communities on the grounds of a security need.
[38] All but two of the world's countries did not recognize the Jordanian occupation of what, according to the partition plan, was meant to be a Palestinian state.
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