Nature society calls to freeze ‘land grab’ retroactively legalizing Galilee farm buildings

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel on Sunday called on the Agriculture Ministry to freeze what it described as an attempted land grab, after the ministry published a draft order aimed at retroactively legalizing dozens of residential buildings built illegally on grazing land in the Galilee.

The draft order is based on the Law for Regulating Residences in Grazing Areas, passed last year at the initiative of the Settlement and National Missions Ministry, which is run by the right-wing Religious Zionism lawmaker Orit Strock.

Jewish-owned farms in the country’s north and south, home to large populations of Arabs, including Bedouin, are often seen as bulwarks against Arab residential and agricultural expansion.

The law names the Agriculture Ministry as the body authorized to issue building permits. The draft order aims to approve buildings on seven large farms in northern Israel, defining them as essential for flock protection.

The total land area in question — more than 51,000 dunams (12,600 acres) — is equivalent to that covered by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality.

According to the SPNI, it includes nature reserves, national parks, and forests, as well as areas designated by planners as highly environmentally sensitive.

The ministry issued the draft order at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, initially giving the pubic just four days to comment on it — including two days over the weekend. This, said the SPNI, was also during wartime, when the public was less able to scrutinize and respond to issues unrelated to personal security.

On Monday, the ministry said it had extended the response time to 21 days.

Subject to public comment, the ministry plans to provide blanket retroactive approval to the farm buildings from March 19.

In a letter sent Sunday to the Agriculture Ministry’s legal adviser, Ariel Kahan, the SPNI said the ministry was bypassing standard planning institutions and regulations and had failed to provide maps of the land on which building approval was proposed or the recommendations of a consultation team.

Furthermore, the SPNI pointed out that the Law for Regulating Residences in Grazing Areas was currently the subject of a High Court petition.

The order applies to farmers who have held legal grazing permits for at least three of the five years preceding the law’s passage and who built structures illegally before the law was passed.

The SPNI called on the Agriculture Ministry to freeze the process, release all missing documentation, and provide 30 days for public comment.

The Agriculture Ministry pointed out that the order’s timing reflected the obligation to act within a year of the law’s passing, as well as “inquiries from interested parties.” It said the ministry was operating within the framework of the Law for Regulating Residence in Grazing Areas. The seven chosen areas met the criteria, it went on, were recommended by an advisory team established under the law, and were found to meet all the conditions set forth in the law for such a declaration.