Zahalka: Implementing the Absentee Property Law in Jerusalem is a 'declaration of war' on Palestinian existence

Knesset Member, Jamal Zahalka, who heads the National Democratic Alliance bloc in the Israeli parliament, considers the implementation of Israel’s Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem as “a declaration of war on the Palestinian presence in the city.”

This comes after Israeli Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, informed the Supreme Court that the Absentee Property Law was valid. The law in question authorizes the Israeli authorities to seize Palestinian property abandoned by its owners.

In a press statement on Wednesday, July 21, Zahalka said that “Israel is a school in confiscating land and property for colonial motives with approximately 30 laws to this end. However, this law is the most dangerous of them all because it constitutes the primary means of seizing land and property internally [inside 1948 Palestine] and in Jerusalem.”

MK Zahalka warned of the repercussion of this ‘dangerous strategy’ that involves the Supreme Court ratifying the enforcement of this law and which “poses the threat of unleashing the confiscation monster to take over vast amounts of their [Palestinian] land and property” he stated.