Last update - 00:00 30/08/2007
Hebron Jews say Jewish property owners are discriminated against
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
The Custodian of Absentee Property is discriminating against Jewish property owners in Hebron and neglecting to manage the real estate as the law requires, a special report by the Committee of the Jewish Community in Hebron says.
The report, distributed to Knesset members and public figures, also accuses the custodian of not seeking out the original owners of the property.
The report comes just a few weeks after security forces clashed with settlers they evacuated from the city's wholesale market after the settlers illegally occupied several buildings.
Since the Six-Day War, the custodian has administered around 70 properties in Hebron, which originally belonged to individual Jews or charitable organizations before the riots of 1929 when the Jewish community of Hebron was evacuated by the British.
The properties, including homes, shops and agricultural plots, are located in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood, the wholesale market, Tel Rumeida, and elsewhere, but the report notes that there are apparently dozens the state has never bothered to map.
The Civil Administration spokesman, Captain Tzadki Maman, said the custodian "manages the property in Judea and Samara, including Hebron, without bias, keeping to the principles of proper administration and law and order."
Maman said "the claims in the report are baseless," and that "the custodian's actions in Hebron are in keeping with the directives of the government and have withstood every legal test, including High Court hearings."
The committee's demand that the custodian no longer be allowed to manage the properties has been rejected by the state in the past, but the report signals that a new public relations campaign is afoot.
If the demand is met, the Committee for the Jewish Community of Hebron could settle Jews in buildings whose owners have given it power of attorney.
"The height of contempt for the custodian's obligation to the property has come to the fore in recent years," the report states, "with many properties empty and neglected, while requests from "those with power of attorney from the owners" receive "negative answers or no answers at all."
One example presented in the report is of Plot 53 in Bloc 34416 in the Tel Rumeida area. The committee says the Sephardic married men's yeshiva Magen Avraham, the owner of the property, gave the committee power of attorney, and the rental agreement with the Arab resident of the property was terminated by the Civil Administration in 2000.
The report states that in 2003 the GOC Central Command recommended planning construction for Jews to live in the area.
"The custodian does not do enough to prevent non-Jewish squatters. In contrast, Jews who 'squatted' on those same properties were arrested, interrogated and tried," the report states.
The report also notes that two of the three judges on the Civil Administration Appeals Committee, which rejected the appeal of Jewish residents to remain in premises in the wholesale market, recommended to the state that families be allowed to stay. The state presented an arrangement in this spirit to the High Court of Justice, but then backtracked.
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