Ministers back bill to let Israeli citizens directly purchase West Bank land
Existing state of affairs called ‘blatantly discriminatory and racist’ as non-Muslims are barred from buying real estate in a holdover from Jordanian rule
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted Sunday to give its backing to a bill allowing for the direct purchase of West Bank land by Israeli citizens, which would reverse what the legislation’s backers decry as a “discriminatory and racist” legal provision that prevents non-Muslims from buying real estate — left over from the period when Jordan controlled the area.
Until now, such transactions could only be conducted by specially approved companies granted permission by Israeli military authorities to operate in the West Bank.
Although the law “is blatantly discriminatory and racist, it remains in force despite Israel’s liberation of the territory in 1967 [and] because Israeli law has not been applied to these territories, the law has been used primarily to hinder Jewish purchase and development,” the Land of Israel Caucus, whose members backed the bill, said in a statement.
“While the Palestinian Arabs constantly accuse Israel of apartheid, in territory under Israeli jurisdiction, Jordanian legislation that imposes anti-Jewish apartheid is still in force,” caucus co-chairs Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), Yuli Edelstein (Likud) and Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) said in a statement.
“The legislation we are proposing will bring an end to years of discrimination, and will allow more and more Jews to purchase property and to build their homes in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] without the anachronistic constraints put in place by the illegal Arab occupation regime in an attempt to maintain the ethnic cleansing of Jews.”
The bill was written in collaboration with the pro-settlement Regavim group, sponsor Moshe Solomon (Religious Zionism) said, maintaining that if passed into law, the measure would “restore normalcy in the State of Israel — a Jewish, democratic country that has allowed race-based discrimination against Jews to persist since the era of the British Mandate.”

The Peace Now settlement watchdog organization claimed that the legislation “is yet another annexation move initiated by the messianic right.”
“The proposal seeks to allow settlers to purchase land without any oversight throughout the West Bank, effectively making them ‘landlords’ in the West Bank in both symbolic and practical terms,” the dovish group said in a statement.
“The bill would give a small number of extremist settlers the ability to acquire land and later establish settlements, whether in the heart of Hebron or anywhere else, and drag the IDF to risk soldiers’ lives and protect them,” the statement said.
“Furthermore, the Knesset has no authority to legislate laws for areas that are not under Israeli sovereignty, and the attempt to apply Knesset laws to the occupied territory constitutes annexation and a blatant violation of international law,” Peace Now said.
Right-wing lawmakers are hoping that Israel will be able to significantly expand its footprint in the West Bank under the new Trump administration, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declaring last November that the US president’s election provided Jerusalem with the opportunity to advance the annexation of Jewish settlements.