Just who’s land is it anyway?

I have been keeping my eye on a story out of Hebron. Hundreds of Yeshiva students take over an abandoned building which the Hebron Jewish Community claims to have legally purchased from the owner in Jordan. A local Palestinian man claims to possess legal title to the building and maintains he did not sell it. The Jerusalem Post carries this rather account.

The Jewish community of Hebron celebrated Monday evening after 200-300 students moved into a house in a Palestinian neighborhood on the road between Kiryat Arba and the Machpela Cave. According to Hebron Jewish community spokesman David Wilder, representatives of the community purchased the building through an office in Jordan for the sum of $700,000.

Wilder said they planned on calling the house "Bayit Hashalom (house of peace), in the hope that it can be the bridge for better relations." "We feel it is a very important location... it can be a link between the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba and Hebron," said Wilder. He said that although they had not yet decided on the use for the massive building, "it's very, very likely that there will be families there." The building, he added, could also hold a school or offices in the future. Security forces were stationed around the building Monday night but the situation remained calm in the city, often seen as a tinderbox for conflict among Jewish and Arab residents and security forces.

But the occupant of the house, Fayez Rajabi, told members of the B'tselem organization that he did not sell the house to the settlers. Rajabi filed an official complaint with the police on Monday night. Judea and Samaria District Police said they were looking into the issue and checking the documents. Wilder confirmed that the community had turned over to authorities the legal papers documenting the sale and the transfer of ownership.

Since both parties claim to have produced title to the abandoned building - who has the right of it? It’s just not a simple question. It would be reasonably to presume that the alleged Palestinian owner’s (Fayez Rajabi) outrage was genuine if this were Canada. Frequently, there are absentee Jordanian landlords who own actual title to the buildings and land in the West Bank while ‘other’ locals claim the right of ownership by possession. Eventually, if enough time has passed, it is taken as a given in the community, that the one making the most noise has title when it is just not necessarily so.

But let’s make two assumptions. Rajabi did own title to building and land and he did sell it. What would be his possible motivation for launching a very public outcry against the actual sale and then deny all knowledge of it? He might want to keep protect his life and the life of his family.

Frequently, Arabs (both Palestinian and Israeli) who knowingly sell land to Jews are murdered in a very brutal fashion. Even the leasing of land for Jewish use in Israel has resulted in grievous harm. If a Greek Orthodox Patriarch is not immune from persecution by official Palestinian Authority thugs in Israel – what chance does an ordinary Palestinian Arab land owner have?

Let’s look at the other side. What are the odds that the Hebron Jewish Community has forged the papers and title for the land? While I found Palestinian accounts of small home invasions by individual Jews, I have found no evidence on this size or scale. Given the often explosive nature of the Hebron community between Jews/Arabs and relations between the Israeli government and Jews - I would suggest it far more likely that the Hebron Jewish Community would move very slowly to ensure all the ‘I’s’ were dotted and the ‘T’s’ were legally crossed.

The biggest fight the Hebron Jewish Community will have to maintain possession of this land and building will be launched from the Israeli government and by other Jewish left-wing extremist organizations. In fact, B’tselem (an extremist left-wing Jewish group heavily financed and supported by overseas governments) has already launched the opening salvo:

But B'tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said it was not sufficient simply to check the documents' veracity, and that it was the role of the IDF to prevent the settlers from moving into the house, even if it was legally acquired. "Our opposition in principle is that these settlements should be evacuated anyway and that there shouldn't be these pockets in Hebron," said Michaeli, adding that "other than watching and making sure that [the sale] was done in a legal way, the IDF has the obligation to make sure that settlers don't take over more areas."

There always remains the possibility that the Hebron Jewish Community were the unknowing dupes of a former Jordanian landlord’s malfeasance. Why this story bairs watching in the coming days is because these are not your grandmother’s ghetto-ized Jews who will lie down and die with little resistance or run at the first sign of a struggle or fight. If I were to generalize, I think it would be safer to say characterize these Jews as the modern inheritors of the Maccabee tradition.

Update:

I received an email advising me that it is not a Yeshiva Student group which purchased the building, but rather the Hebron Jewish Community. Consider it duly corrected. By the way, the Hebron Jewish Community has a rather nifty video/display/slide show of the Beit HaShalom building in question.