Israel's attorney general ordered the government on Tuesday to rescind a decision to enforce a decades-old law under which large tracts of Palestinian land in Arab East Jerusalem could be confiscated, officials said. The government invoked the 1950 Absentee Property Law last July and word leaked out this month, alarming Palestinians who feared an attempt to usurp their claims to East Jerusalem, which they want as the capital of a future state.
Israeli media said the move had angered the US administration, which regarded it as an obstacle to new peace prospects raised by the election of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on January 9 to replace Yasser Arafat.
In a lengthy legal opinion, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the government to cancel implementation of the law in East Jerusalem, saying it violated obligations under international law and was sure to be overturned by the Supreme Court. "This decision cannot stand," Mazuz said in a four-page ruling on the law, which allows a state custodian to seize East Jerusalem property belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank.
A Justice Ministry source said Mazuz had determined the law would not withstand Supreme Court appeals. "If the Attorney General says it (the law) won't stand up (to appeal) then it means that yes, this law is illegal," the Justice Ministry source said. The government was obliged to adhere to Mazuz's decision, the source added.
Officials at the Finance Ministry, which is responsible for implementing the law, and at Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office declined immediate comment.
Haaretz said the decision was approved at a June 22 meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Jerusalem Affairs attended by only two members, both rightists.
Since there were no opposing votes in the meeting, the decision was automatically approved by the government two weeks later without a cabinet vote or a notation in cabinet minutes.
Mazuz said that due to a bureaucratic mishap, he was not informed of the decision and only found out by chance when legal complaints were made to his office.