The Palestinian Authority temporarily suspended land registration transactions last week for people with Israeli citizenship or residents of Jerusalem, following the purchase of eight homes by Jewish activists near Jericho, an Area A city, according to an official statement from the Palestinian Land Authority.
Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform Initiative at the Jerusalem Public Affairs Center, argued that the Palestinian Authority probably believed that Israeli Jews acquired the homes with the help of Israeli Arabs.
Palestinian law considers selling or leasing land to Israeli Jews an act of treason, punishable by severe penalties, including life imprisonment with hard labor and potentially the death penalty. In 2019, a Nablus court sentenced a Palestinian to five years in prison for allegedly trying to sell land to Israeli Jews. In 2018, a Kalkilya court sentenced two Palestinians to 15 years of forced labor for their involvement in a network to transfer West Bank land to Israeli Jews.
“The decision reveals a fundamental contradiction in Palestinian Authority policy. While the PA considers Arab citizens and residents of Israel to be Palestinians, it now treats their Israeli citizenship as grounds to restrict their real estate transactions,” Hirsch wrote in a post for the JCPA.
He added: “The Palestinian Authority’s latest restrictions on Arab Israeli real estate transactions represent another dimension of this policy, extending its consequences beyond Palestinians living under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, to Arab citizens and residents of Israel. »
The Palestinian Authority has long considered Israel’s approximately two million Arab citizens to be Palestinian, regardless of their integration into Israeli society, military service or identity. However, the latest suspension, although a temporary restriction that has now been lifted, introduced one of the first distinctions based on Israeli citizenship and residency status of Arabs.
Despite the Oslo Accords excluding Israeli citizens from the PA’s personal jurisdiction, the PA has attempted to prosecute Israeli Arabs in the past for their alleged role in land transfers to Jews and other alleged crimes.
The location of the eight houses is also important. Although Jericho is in Area A, under the civilian and security control of the Palestinian Authority, the properties in question are located in Area C, which is entirely under Israeli civil and security control. Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority’s territorial jurisdiction does not extend to Area C, and Israeli citizens are also excluded from its personal jurisdiction. This raises questions about the PA’s authority to investigate or prosecute Israeli citizens in connection with the purchases, even if Israeli Arabs were involved in facilitating the transactions.
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