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IPFS News Link • Israel - Palestine

Palestinians File Objection to US Embassy in Jerusalem

• https://consortiumnews.com, By Peoples Dispatch

legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel has filed an objection to the U.S. move to build its new embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen by Israel from its original Palestinian owners. It called for the immediate cancellation of the plan.

The objection was filed by Adalah on Jan. 30 to the Jerusalem District Planning Committee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on behalf of 12 descendants of the original owners, four of them U.S. citizens. 

Blinken was in Israel on Monday to meet Israeli President Issac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other state officials.  

In a press statement,   Adalah called the move to build a U.S. diplomatic compound in Jerusalem a violation of international law related to the respect of private property. 

Israel confiscated the land from its original Palestinian owners under the Absentees' Property Law, passed in 1950. Israeli state archive records, published by Adalah in July 2022, make Palestinian ownership clear.

The documents reveal that the land was temporarily leased to British mandate authorities by its Palestinian owners well before the creation of Israel in 1948. 

Adalah also called Israel's Absentees' Property Law "one of the most arbitrary, sweeping, discriminatory, and draconian laws enacted in the state of Israel." It further said that the "law was drafted with racist motives and its sole purpose was to expropriate the assets of Palestinians."


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