Right-wing groups use 'right of return' to evict Arabs from East Jerusalem

[azurnoir]

In December 2012, a Jerusalem court ruled to evict a Palestinian family from its Sheikh Jarrah home, where it had been living for decades, on March 1. The eviction suit, filed by the Justice Ministry's Custodian General, was engineered entirely by far-right activists.

The Shamasna family of Sheikh Jarrah is one of several Palestinian families to have been evicted in recent years using a similar method.

The law enables Jews, but not Palestinians, to reclaim property they left behind enemy lines in 1948. A number of rightist NGOs have been acting vigorously in recent years to track down the Jewish heirs of properties in East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods and assist them in "releasing" the property, held in trust by the Custodian General. They then buy the property from the heirs or rent it to Jewish settlers.

The Shamasna family home, like many others in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood, was built on land that belonged to Jewish families who had fled to west Jerusalem during the War of Independence. This method has raised much protest from both Palestinians and Jerusalem peace activists.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-right-wing-groups-use-right-of-return-to-evict-arabs-from-east-jerusalem.premium-1.501013

[pugetres]

1. More abuse of international law

The Law of Return is legislation enacted by Israel in 1950, that gives all Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry, and spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to and settle in Israel and obtain citizenship, and obliges the Israeli government to facilitate their immigration. Originally, the law applied to Jews only, until a 1970 amendment stated that the rights "are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew". This resulted in several hundreds of thousands of persons fitting the above criteria immigrating to Israel (mainly from the former Soviet Union) but not being recognized as Jews by the Israeli religious authorities, which on the basis of halakha recognize only the child of a Jewish mother as being Jewish. Moreover, some of these immigrants, though having a Jewish grandparent, are known to be practicing Christians.

[aranthus]

3. How?

What "law" does this violate?

[azurnoir]

2. It seems that in Israel only one side has property rights

the other can go pound sand