Luxury Hotels In San Diego|"Israel Backtracks On Confiscating Palestinian Families"

Source         :     haaretz.com
Category     :    Luxury Hotels In San Diego
By               :    Nir Hasson
Posted By   :    Hotels in Virginia Beach North Courtyard

Luxury Hotels In San Diego

The state has reversed its previous decision to confiscate the Cliff Hotel in East Jerusalem from its owners, the State Prosecutor's Office informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The state had invoked the Absentee Property Law to seize the property, located some 50 meters from the Palestinian Parliament in Abu Dis. An expanded panel of seven justices headed by Supreme Court President Asher Grunis has been hearing the case, which centers on applying the Absentees Property Law – 1950 to confiscate property in East Jerusalem. Under that law, any person who lived in a hostile country, or in the area of “the Land of Israel” that was not under the State of Israel’s control, and owned property within the state, is considered an absentee owner and his property can be transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property.

The primary purpose of this law was to enable use of lands belonging to Arabs who fled during the War of Independence. After the Six-Day War, which saw the extention of Jerusalem's municipal boundaries into the West Bank, Palestinians with assets in Jerusalem suddenly found themselves considered “absentee” owners, even though they hadn’t gone anywhere. For example, the Ayad family of Abu Dis owned the Cliff Hotel, only 200 meters from their home. However, the municipal boundary of Jerusalem now runs right between their home and the hotel. As a result, in 2003 the Custodian declared it absentee property and confiscated the hotel for the state. The hotel now stands deserted, and the state had wanted to turn it into a base for Israel's Border Police following the completion of the separation fence in the area.

The Ayad family, along with a number of other Palestinian families whose property was confiscated, took their legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court. In a response filed this morning by Moshe Golan of the State Prosecutor's Office, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has reversed his previous opinion and said there are significant legal difficulties to implementing the Absentees Property Law in East Jerusalem, both in the area of international and administrative law. Nonetheless, Weinstein said it would be appropriate to implement the law in East Jerusalem in a measured fashion. The State Prosecutor's Office said the Custodian for Absentee Property should not use the authority granted to him under the law for such property "except under special circumstances and subject to the prior approval of the Attorney General." The state also announced it was withdrawing its appeal of a District Court ruling returning one of the properties to its Palestinian owners. The prosecution said it had been convinced that it would not be able to prove the factual basis that the owners met the conditions of "absentees" under the law.

The state also presented the court with the decisions in three other cases of the special committee that operates based on the Absentee Property Law to examine the possibility of releasing the properties from the hands of the custodian and returning them to their original owners. The committee is headed by Ehud Prawer, the Prime Minister’s Office official who heads the committee that formulated the plan to regulate Bedouin lands in the Negev. As to the Cliff Hotel, the committee recommended that the Custodian of Absentee Property release the part of the property that had not yet been confiscated and pay for the part that had been confiscated. But the property will be released only to those heirs who are residents of the West Bank. The owners are the dozen heirs of Abdel Hadi Ayad, who died in 1978, and include a British citizen, a Norwegian citizen, four Jordanians, three residents of the Palestinian Authority and three citizens of Kuwait.

As to another property in the area of Beit Hanina, the committee decided the Custodian must pay the Palestinian heirs, the Hatib family, the value of the property, which has already been sold. One of the heirs was a terrorist who participated in the hijacking of the Air France plane to Entebbe in 1976 and was killed by IDF soldiers during the operation to free the hostages. As to his heirs, the committee decided they were not entitled to compensation. The committee did not make a decision in the third case, saying it lacked the detailed information required. A few months ago Weinstein's office formulated regulations to ensure that properties seized in East Jerusalem under the Absentees Property Law would not be returned to Palestinians with a security record or connection to hostile elements. Moreover, such properties would only be returned to Palestinian owners after taking into account “the influence releasing the property would have given its location in the fabric of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods,” the proposed guidelines state. This would make it difficult for a Palestinian to get back his property if Jews had moved into the adjacent areas. Avigdor Feldman, the lawyer representing the Hatib family and the owners of the Cliff Hotel, objected to the State Prosecutor's Office's announcement to the Supreme Court. Feldman called the announcement an attempt to avoid a discussion of the principle of the issue.

Source : haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.544089