Last March, the Israeli Civil Administration made public that, over the last 33 years, 0.77% of the “land owned by the state” in the West Bank has been assigned to Palestinian residents as compared to the 39% allocated to settlers. This unequal treatment has attracted fierce criticism.
Nonetheless, such criticisms have often resorted to the same terminology and arguments used by those who uphold the legitimacy of the settlements, effectively giving credence to the idea that the colonies authorized by the Israeli authorities were built, to paraphrase David M. Philips in Commentary, on “state-owned” or “public” land, thus on “un-registered” lands, or areas ascribable to “absentee property owners.”
