Two weeks ago, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement declaring that the crux of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was not land, but his country's very existence. The timing of this unusual statement — that goes against conventional wisdom or even logic — was important: It came on the heels of an Arab League delegation declaration (or reiteration) that land swaps would be applicable should Israel agree to end the conflict based on the 1967 borders.

Suffice it to say that — had the conflict not been about land — it would be difficult to explain why millions of dollars are spent each year by the Israeli government on a settlement enterprise that has seen the number of Israelis colonizing the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, double to half a million between 1993 and today. Had land not played a monumental role in the question of how peace can ultimately be established within this thin strip of land, Israeli authorities would not have used every tool at their disposal to acquire more territory since the state’s 1948 inception.

As Palestinians commemorate 65 years since the Nakba (or the catastrophe) — where some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee their homes — the fact that land is at the heart of the conflict is all the more jarring. Take the question of Palestinian claims to property and land in West Jerusalem as an example. Citing a United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) survey of Palestinian refugee property, Adnan Abdel Razik, an expert on land settlement and zoning, says Arabs owned some 33.69% of West Jerusalem’s land back in 1949. Jewish-owned land constituted 30%, while Christian missions owned some 15%. Many famous parts of West Jerusalem such as Katamon and the Greek and German colonies were once owned by Palestinians.

According to Abdel Razik, immediately after the 1948 war, Israel reclassified most “abandoned” Arab property as absentee. This act was later enshrined in law and approved by the Knesset in 1950. The Absentee Property Law stipulated the creation of the “Development Authority,” which was authorized to sell this land to the government, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and other public agencies, in close cooperation with the Custodian of Absentee Property, which administers land “abandoned” by its owners. It is this codification of land expropriation through state policy that oversaw a vast dispossession of Palestinian property and land following the 1948 war. These laws are still utilized today by Israeli authorities to overtake individual houses, vast tracts of agricultural land and property of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.