Israeli Firms Are Working Overtime to Sell Stolen Palestinian Land to US Jews
By Eleanor Goldfield , TRUTHOUT
There was a time when Israel would be up in arms whenever some junior country would threaten to recognize a Palestinian state. Since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, hardly a week goes by without some European nation announcing its intention to consider recognizing Palestine.
After the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta, now Spain says it intends to accomplish this by July.
Madrid seemed hardly fazed by the Knesset’s pathetic response, which decided to object to any sort of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, as if there was a majority in the Knesset for bilateral recognition.
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Israeli Firms Are Working Overtime to Sell Stolen Palestinian Land to US Jews
Eleanor Goldfield • 1d
Part of the Series
Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation
“Your chance to own a piece of the Holy Land!” exclaims the cheerful advertising copy on a real estate website aimed at attracting buyers in the U.S. and Canada to purchase land located in Israel and in a number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The site describes five land sale events that occurred this spring in the U.S. and Canada.
Another land sale event held in Baltimore invited attendees to “Buy Your Home in Israel Now!” But, as with the other events, attendees couldn’t just be anyone interested in some freshly stolen land. You have to be Jewish, but not just any kind of Jewish.
Greg Kaplan, a local Jewish community member who wanted to learn more about these restrictive events and who tried signing up for the April 1 land sale event in Baltimore, which was hosted by the Jerusalem-based CapitIL Real Estate Agency, told me:
I got a call from Shmuly Eisenmann of CapitIL. He asked me where I daven, who the rabbi is there, and for the rabbi’s number, seeming incredulous that I wouldn’t just have the rabbi’s number stored in my phone. He said he would check on me with the rabbi and asked if the rabbi would know who I was. I said probably not because I don’t go to shul that much. He asked if there was someone at another shul who could vouch for me.
Kaplan was not allowed into the event, which was scheduled to take place at Shomrei Emunah, “a full-service shul and Jewish center” in Baltimore whose list of speakers and scholars in residence includes an IDF lieutenant colonel.
Gillian Stoll, a member of the New Jersey chapter of IfNotNow, who tried to register for the Teaneck, New Jersey, event on March 31, received a series of phone calls. On the first call, Stoll admits to being caught off guard by a slew of questions including the name of her temple and rabbi, his direct number as well as what the reading was at the temple that week. She gave the name of her old rabbi and temple, and the man calling seemed satisfied for the moment, offering that they had to cancel previously “because of protestors.” She then “got a second call from another not so nice guy saying he called the rabbi and he hadn’t heard of me … and asked how old I was … and if I’d been to Israel.” Stoll was also not allowed into the event.
Needless to say, I — as a secular Jew who hasn’t been to temple since about 2007 and whose most recent run-in with a rabbi involved one chanting alongside me at an anti-Zionist action — didn’t even get a phone call. And while these discriminatory practices might be necessary to avoid a bunch of anti-Zionist protestors in your midst, they are, in fact, illegal.
A recent press release from the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation (PAL) Law Commission pointed out that these land sale events “are illegal under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and Civil Rights Act of 1965, since registration, entry, and participation are denied on the basis of identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion).”
The commission added that these events violate not only U.S. law but also international law with regard to hosts “exhibiting and offering properties on West Bank settlements recognized as illegal by the U.S. Department of State and by international law” including “Article 49 of the Geneva Convention … Settlements have been found to be grave breaches of international law, and therefore war crimes, by the International Court [ICJ] of Justice in 2004, and are also currently under review by the ICJ in the context of the case of South Africa v. Israel for crimes of genocide, and by the International Criminal Court.”
PAL Law Commission has filed notices and complaints with attorneys general and real estate licensing authorities, and has also served formal cease and desist letters alongside notice and demand letters regarding their findings.
When asked about responses from hosts or organizers, PAL spokesperson Hena Zuberi said:
The response we’ve received is them shifting their events online and/or sponsors pulling out of the events, at least publicly. Although this hasn’t been a direct communication with us it came as an effect directly following our legal action and served as a major legal and grassroots victory for the case and the campaign overall. We’ve shut down several events and moved others online through this action.
One such event was scheduled to take place in Flatbush, Brooklyn, at the Khal Bnei Avrohom Yaakov Simcha Hall and was later moved online after both legal action and local protests. Indeed, it’s impossible to say whether legal action, direct action or a combination of the two has pushed the cancellation or relocation of land sale events. Either way, it’s clear that hosts and organizers are uncomfortable with the attention, as they should be.
On the site listing the event in Flatbush as well as events in Montreal; Toronto; Teaneck, New Jersey; and Lawrence, New York, a banner reads “Our expert speakers will address all your questions about purchasing real estate in Israel and focusing on: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Modiin, Givat Shmuel, Raanana, Neve Daniel, Efrat, Motza, Haifa, Ma’ale Adumim, Ashkelon, Netanya.”
When I sent this list of location names to Nora Barrows-Friedman, an associate editor at The Electronic Intifada who has covered Palestine for 20 years and has a deep understanding of various demarcated zones and boundaries, she explained:
Neve Daniel and Efrat are major settlements in the area between Bethlehem and Hebron in the West Bank. Efrat is the settlement Palestinians call “the snake” because it’s a narrow but long settlement that snakes atop the hills. Ma’ale Addumim is one of the largest settlements in the West Bank, and Ashkelon is the city just north of Gaza.
Without more information on Modiin, she couldn’t say whether or not it’s Modiin Illit, which is “part of the Ariel/Maale Addumim/E-1 settlement bloc.” However, even without that clarification, it’s clear that much of the property on offer at least five of these land sale events falls within the West Bank. But, as Barrows-Friedman pointed out, “it’s all occupied land, of course.”
Meanwhile, violence and displacement has skyrocketed with roughly 4,000 Palestinians displaced in the West Bank in 2023, the majority after October 7, according to a February report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Tamara Nassar at The Electronic Intifada reported in late March that “Israeli forces and settlers have injured nearly 5,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, more than 700 of them children.” The Express Tribune, a Pakistani partner paper of The New York Times, reported on March 30 that some 27,000 decares of land (roughly 6,600 acres) in the West Ba…
Land to US Jews
The real estate events peddling land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank appear to flout US and international law.
