Landowners in Lajoun Demand Registration in their Names of Land Confiscated Fifty Years Ago

On 31 May 2006, Adalah submitted its written arguments to the Nazareth District Court challenging the appropriation on 15 November 1953 of a 200-dunam plot of land in the village of Lajoun, located near to the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. The land was previously part of Umm al-Fahm. Adalah argued that the Court should rule the expropriation of the land in question fundamentally invalid and that the deeds to the land must be registered in the names of the original owners. The arguments were submitted by Adalah Attorneys Adel Bader and Suhad Bishara behalf of the original owners of the land in the village of Lajoun in the context of a disputed land settlement case for the piece of land.

In 1953, the lands were expropriated following an order of then-Minister of Finance, Levi Ashkol, in accordance with his powers under Article 2 of The Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law – 1953. According to the Minister's order, approximately 34,600 dunams of Umm al-Fahm's land, including in the area of Lajoun, were sequestered for essential settlement and development needs. However, during the fifty-three years since the appropriation of the land, it has not been used for the purposes for which it was ostensibly appropriated. Specifically, the plot which is the subject of this disputed land settlement case has not been used for the goals asserted in the Minister of Finance's order.

In the arguments, Adalah asserted that the confiscation was not necessary in the first place, as attested to by the fact that the land has not been used for the purposes put forward to justify its appropriation for over fifty years. Adalah stressed that the state's failure to address the alleged essential settlement and development needs in the time since 1953 indicates that the there is no need to construct residential settlements on the land in question. Thus, the public need is no longer valid and the land should therefore be returned to its owners.

Additionally, Adalah maintained that the urgent need claimed in the Minister of Finance's order for employing the land for settlement and development was incorrect, and that the land was in fact sequestered for illegal and irrational reasons.

C.F. 568/03, et. al., Muhammad Mahajneh, et. al. v. The State of Israel et. al.