- Israel's attorney general has told the government to
call an immediate halt to confiscating Palestinian property in East
Jerusalem
under a 1950 land law.
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- Meni Mazuz said he was never consulted about the policy,
which was secretly approved by the cabinet last summer.
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- He wrote to the finance minister saying the law could
not be used for people absent from their property because of Israeli
security
measures.
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- The legislation entitles Israel to take Arab-owned land
without compensation.
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- Palestinians say the cabinet decision was meant to allow
the takeover of thousands of hectares of Palestinian-owned land around
Jerusalem and cement Israel's control over the occupied eastern half of
the city.
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- Hundreds of hectares have been seized in recent months,
say lawyers for Palestinian landowners.
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- The United States has expressed concern about Israel's
decision to apply the 1950 Absentee Property Law after it was brought to
light last month.
-
- A meeting between top Israeli envoy Dov Weisglass and
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is thought to have discussed the
issue on Monday.
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- Not defensible
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- Mr Mazuz ruled that reviving the long-dormant law was
illegal, justice ministry spokesman Jacob Galanti told journalists.
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- "Mazuz gave his opinion to ministers that this
decision
is not legally defensible, that it cannot stand up to either Israeli or
international law," he said.
-
- Many of the Palestinian "absentees" affected
by implementation of the 55-year-old law are cut off from their land by
new structures like roads to Jewish settlements and Israel's separation
barrier, which has been deemed illegal by the International Court of
Justice.
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- The law was originally devised to expropriate property
belonging to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled their homes
during the conflict that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.
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- Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza
from Jordan in the 1967 war.
-
- It then expanded Jerusalem's municipal boundaries into
the West Bank and annexed the enlarged eastern Jerusalem, a move not
recognised
internationally.
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- © BBC MMV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4226497.stm
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