Settlers and Settlements: May 11, 2012
Mohammed Nabulsi, an East Jerusalem taxi driver, provided settler organizations with affadavits claiming that Palestinian owners of East Jerusalem homes were “absentees” residing in enemy countries, which the state used over and over to expropriate the properties and turn them over to settler organizations. In 1992, the Custodian of Absentee Properties, Aharon Shakarji, told the Knesset State Control Committee that he had received between 10 and 15 affidavits of this type from Nabulsi, on the basis of which a property owner was declared absentee, although people were living in the houses at the time. Despite criticism, the system of absentee declaration continues to be used.
