So just whose land is it anyway?

On of the innate problems of land claims in Israel or the disputed territories is determining ownership of any given plot of land. What you think was Arab land prior to 1949 can never be just assumed to be Arab owned land. Talk about the fluidity of ownership.

Although, I must say US Secretary of State Condi Rice does give the impression she has all the subtleties fleshed out. The Jerusalem Post ran an article reconfirming the American opposition to even the idea of the Israelis building 300 more homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Har Homa.

On the eve of US President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and the region, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice placed the issue of settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem at center stage, telling The Jerusalem Post that "Har Homa is a settlement the United States has opposed from the very beginning."

Rice, who was accompanying Bush en route to Israel overnight Tuesday, said that "the United States doesn't make a distinction" between settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and that Israel's road map obligations, which include a building freeze, relate to "settlement activity generally." Rice's comments underlined that the settlement issue will be high on the agenda of the talks between Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Apparently, the previous owners of Har Homa were Jews who purchased the land legally from Sheikh Shehade al-Faghuri in 1944. Of course, the legal owners of the land lost it when Jordan illegally seized Har Homa in 1949. This cool historical fact comes courtesy of the Elder of Ziyon and was sourced from to Hillel Cohen’s book the Army of Shadows: Palestinian collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948.

Another book I will have to find the time to read. So many books, so little time...