Israeli Settlers …“landlords” in the occupied West Bank

Calling it “annexation and apartheid.” Peace Now called the new bill approved by the Israeli Knesset’s plenum that will allow Israelis to purchase land in the occupied West Bank without any restrictions. 

 Settlers to become “landlords” in the Palestinian occupied West Bank, opening the door to “questionable deals and forgeries”.Israeli rights group Peace Now warned .

The proposed legislation , titled the “Elimination of the Discrimination in the Purchase of Real Estate in Judea and Samaria”, seeks to make the properties and land purchase for Jewish settlers across almost the entire occupied West Bank easier and without supervision or restrictions thus opening the door for questionable deals and forgeries.

The billwhich was introduced by MK Moshe Solomon of the  Religious Zionist Party in November ,was approved by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation on January 26 and will be presented to the Israeli parliament for a first reading .

Solomon claimed: “The law is intended to restore normalcy to the State of Israel – a Jewish state that has allowed racist discrimination against Jews to persist since the British Mandate.”

Under current regulations, Israeli settlers are prohibited from directly purchasing land and can only acquire property through companies registered with the Israeli Civil Administration.

The proposed legislation seeks to remove these restrictions and formally repeal a Jordanian law from 1953 that limits who can buy land in the occupied West Bank.

Although the Israeli government had previously issued directives to circumvent this law, enabling Israelis to purchase Palestinian land, the new bill seeks to nullify the Jordanian law altogether and remove existing requirements that have to pass through the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Peace Now rights group further emphasized the legal implications of the bill, stating: “The Knesset has no authority to legislate laws for areas that are not under Israeli sovereignty, and the attempt to apply Knesset laws to the occupied territory constitutes annexation and a blatant violation of international law.”

According to Peace Now, “The bill would give a small number of extremist settlers the ability to acquire land and later establish settlements, whether in the heart of Hebron or anywhere else and drag the IDF to risk soldiers’ lives and protect them.”

If the bill is passed, Israeli settlers, who are the main driver behind the law, will have the upper hand in determining the fate of the West Bank.

The two-state solution that envisions a future Palestinian State in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as its capital has been the only diplomatic solution accepted by the international community to end the 76-year-old conflict.

But since the launch of the 1993 Oslo Accords, illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, have only expanded in size and  each Israeli government has invested significant resources in establishing and expanding the settlements in the occupied Territories, both in terms of the area of land they occupy and in terms of population.

The UN and its principle legal organ the International Court of Justice (ICJ) consider all land occupied by Israel in 1967 to be illegally occupied and in violation of international law.

The West Bank, which is home to almost three million Palestinians, is the biggest land area of the would-be Palestinian state. Illegal Israeli settlement expansion, mounting land grab offensives, and rising attacks against Palestinians by armed settlers under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have all surged in recent yearsespecially since Israel launched its war on Gaza, as global attention has been focused on the genocide carried out by Israel in the Strip.

Last year , Israel’s far right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he had instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty” to annex the West Bank.

However, Israel’s blatant disregard for the international law sees the state claiming dunams and dunams of land for settlement purposes. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have seized at least 27,000 dunams (27 square kilometers) of land.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, and there are currently over 700,000 settlers living illegally in at least 250 settlements and outposts across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The occupied West Bank has also witnessed a dangerous surge of settler violence, with over 1,860 settler attacks taking place from October 2023 to December 2024 – an average of four attacks a day, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Over 870 Palestinians, including 177 children, have been killed in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers across the West Bank.

The new bill will  allow Israelis to purchase Palestinian lands directly , will move Israeli control into civilian hands permanently and will thwartthe premises of Palestinian statehood.

This new bill is a blatant violation of international law, a disregard for international legitimacy and its resolutions, , a breach of the Geneva Conventions and signed agreements.

It is a part of Israel’s ongoing efforts to displace Palestinians and annex their lands.