The lie of 'state lands': Whitewashing the confiscation of Palestinian land
http://972mag.com/the-lie-of-state-lands-whitewashing-the-confiscation-of-palestinian-land/68213/
The outpost of Derekh Avot, sitting on stolen Palestinian land, will soon be whitewashed and its lands will magically turn into “state lands” which will be delivered to the settlers.
A letter from the Officer of the Legal Advisor of the Commander, Judea and Samaria Area – the name the IDF attached to the West Bank – arrived recently at Yesh Din’s offices. The letter said that soon, the Custodian of Government Property intends to announce the lands on which the outpost of Derekh Avot is located as Public Lands (commonly known as “state land”). It further said – feel free to snicker – that prior to making the decision, the Custodian will hold a hearing, in which our clients, the owners of the land, may make their claims to it.
Derekh Avot, notes Peace Now (Hebrew), is one of 16 outposts built partly on stolen Palestinian land (this is a good place to give a shout out to Hagit Ofran, who excels at the Sisyphean and thankless job of documenting the creeping annexation of the West Bank). A report commissioned by the government in 2010, written by Malka Ophri, the chief of the Photo-Analysis Department in the Israeli Mapping Center, found that 60% of the lands controlled by the outpost are lands which were previously tilled by Palestinians, which makes them, according to the laws operative in the West Bank, private lands.
On a related matter.
Oh, now I know what some of you may be thinking. "You're posting an article from 972mag? Wouldn't this be better if all 972 articles were placed in a pinned thread: ensuring easy access to the latest links?"
No. It wouldn't. What it would do is remove access to any 972mag post from the general DU readership and hide it within the I/P group where one would have to dig for it. In essence to do that would stifle it and deny DUers the chance to make up their own minds by limiting what they see.
As DUers we know that the truth is sometimes uncomfortable, but we don't try to hide it. We can debate it, engage it, or we can practice patience and ignore it.
The potential to practice hiding a particular point of view under the pretext of making it easy for everybody is at the very least the least DUish thing that we should tolerate.