Less than three weeks after residents of the Machpelah House were evicted from their home by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, six other families face the same fate as the Jerusalem District Court rejected claims that the sale of another building was legitimate.
This case pertains to a building occupied by Jews in 2005. Their presence and ownership was challenged in court by an Arab, who stated he is the rightful owner. Papers presented to the court by the Tal L’bniya Company and owner Moshe Zar were viewed to be bogus and the court ruled the Arab petitioner is indeed the rightful owner, ordering the six families out.
The Hebron Jewish community is preparing to appeal the district court’s ruling.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
This situation is an outrage. The community pays huge amounts for these buildings, far more than their market value, to compensate the owner for the danger he puts himself in. They do everything possible to verify the seller’s ownership, and to document the transaction in good faith. But in the legal atmosphere that the Israeli government allows and tolerates, in which selling a house to a Jew is a capital offense, and everything has to be done secretly, the community lives under an intolerable risk that years later the seller, in order to save his skin, will find some other Arab to claim that it was really his house, and cancel the sale. The government must legislate to provide certainty of title, where a good-faith buyer has exercised due diligence.