One ready Israeli response to such a challenge is to claim that all conquered private Arab properties have become divested of their original ownerships by virtue of the 1948 war. Notably, however, this would be a legal rather than a moral response, and one that is based on an ad bellum argument that contravenes international law.
Paradoxically, in this specific regard, Jordan in its part maintained international standards after that war by placing all claimed private Jewish properties under special custodianship. In one such area – namely the Sheikh Jarrah plot – a special emergency deal with UNRWA was made to settle 28 refugee families in newly constructed homes without prejudice to Jewish ownership claims. However, the promise to these families was made that in due course the government would transfer the ownership to them. It is these homes that Israel now wishes Palestinian families to vacate.
After 1967, these families began to come under court orders to vacate or pay rent as “protected tenants.” In this phase of the story, an Ottoman document purporting to prove Jewish ownership was presented to the court and certified as valid proof of ownership. The first batch of families that came under court order to pay rent or vacate contested proof of ownership, refused to pay rent, and were evicted.
One (so far, unsuccessful) argument for the defense in the past has been to prove that the residents have been accorded ownership by the Jordanian government. Another has been to contest the Jewish proof of ownership. Defense lawyers now claim they have come to be in possession of further documents that shed doubt on the court interpretation in 1972 of the original Ottoman document used for proving Jewish ownership. Given the nature of the case, these new findings surely must merit consideration by the court.
Remaining within the confines of the law – and assuming reasonable claims by the defense questioning the validity of the Ottoman document – a fair decision by the court when it meets on Sunday, May 2, should be to suspend the eviction orders, review ownership claims, and demand that residents should meantime deposit rentals in the court pending a definitive conclusion to the ownership question.
This does not make the larger moral question disappear. It will, however, reflect due moral diligence in the application of the law.
The writer is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and former president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem.