Why were these thrown out?

[Solomwi]

Quite frankly, this is splitting hairs to me. If you think I wasn't clear in the OP, fine. But please don't tell me what I actually meant when asking.

I never told you what you meant. I told you what you asked.

[KrazyHorse]

If the timeline is correct it appears the clock started in '56.

No. Adverse possession can continue even if the possessors change.

[Solomwi]

Kuci, the clock started in the 30s and stopped in 1972.

This is as good a claim as many people in Israel proper have to their land...

Possibly. There are three things that aren't clear enough from what we have in the thread, to me at least, to make a solid determination possible:

1. The tacking rules. The families being evicted, as far as I can tell, weren't there until 1956, at the earliest. Here, they could possibly tack the periods it was held by previous consecutive adverse possesors to get back to the '30s, but I have no idea whether similar rules are in place there, or what quirks those rules might have.

2. The prescriptive period. I tend to think in terms of 10-20 year prescriptive periods, but that's just because those are the common ones here. It's possible that the period there is much longer. Without a common legal heritage, I won't assume that their periods are comparable to ours as easily as I would in, say, Canada or Australia.

3. The facts surrounding the property between the '30s and 1972, including any possible effects of sovereignty changes.

[Dinner]

The people we're talking about weren't in a refugee camp. They were living in buildings in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers to be part of Israel proper (other countries do not recognize this claim). As these families were living in East Jerusalem at the time Israel took it over they would have been given permanent residency in Israel. The article doesn't specify, but they probably aren't Israeli citizens, as I understand the situation.

They're probably not citizens but the situation is fairly complicated. I mean both sides forced population transfers and resettled refuges on the ethnically cleansed land so it is a bit rich for the Israelis to ignore Palestinian claims of ownership while enforcing Jewish claims of ownership. That said I have never heard of any Arab state paying compensation or even apologizing to the millions of Jews forced out of Arab countries since 1945.

[KrazyHorse]

Solomwi, I'm not arguing that this case conforms to the standards set out in Israel's adverse possession laws (I don't even know if they recognize adverse possession). My point is simply that I doubt Israel's courts' commitment to equal protection of Arab claims in Israel proper as they demonstrate here for Jewish Israeli claims in territory which was formerly controlled by an enemy power.

[Kuciwalker]

2. The prescriptive period. I tend to think in terms of 10-20 year prescriptive periods, but that's just because those are the common ones here. It's possible that the period there is much longer. Without a common legal heritage, I won't assume that their periods are comparable to ours as easily as I would in, say, Canada or Australia.

I believe Israeli law derives from British common law, but I'm not sure.

[Solomwi]

Solomwi, I'm not arguing that this case conforms to the standards set out in Israel's adverse possession laws (I don't even know if they recognize adverse possession). My point is simply that I doubt Israel's courts' commitment to equal protection of Arab claims in Israel proper as they demonstrate here for Jewish Israeli claims in territory which was formerly controlled by an enemy power.

And that's probably fair. If I have a point in this thread, it's probably just that this is a nice ****ing mess which defies armchair analysis.

Kuci, interesting tidbit if true. Even then, though, given the Continental origins of much of Isreal's population, I'd expect the "finished product" 60 years later to have much more of a Roman civil law flavor than we're used to.

[Felch]

No. The Russian residents of Kaliningrad shouldn't be evicted from their homes because they've lived there for half a century. Not because of some idiotic legal theory like "spoils of war."

If Russia's possession of Kaliningrad is legal, then so is Israel's conquest of East Jerusalem. Spoils of war isn't an idiotic theory, it's simply a statement of fact - those with power take from those without.

If you're arguing it's a matter of time, then what exactly is the length of time that allows someone to take something over? Half a century is 50 years. Will Israeli settlements in the West Bank be okay with you in 2017?

This is cynical bull****. The Palestinians should not be "resettled" any more than they already have.

Then they will continue to rot in camps. Why not give them permission to settle in any of the numerous Arab nations in the region? There's a reason . . .

There is no "Arab" establishment as if acting in consort and bearing a collective guilt. You can't "punish" the governments of Egypt, Syria and Jordan by denying rights to Palestinians like you would not defend bombing Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires in retaliation for Israel's actions.

The Arab dictatorships, which I was referring to, do exist. I'm not arguing about collective guilt or acting in concert, rather, these are dictators who have similar solutions to the same problem. The problem is that they are corrupt bastards who deny their people basic human rights, and line their pockets with money from the public treasury. The solution is to shift attention over to Israel and the Palestinian refugees. If they were to ever allow the Palestinians to resettle, they'd lose that issue, and the people would start looking more closely at their mismanagement of the region. You can dispute that, it's certainly a cynical way of looking at things, but I think it's the most realistic view of the problem.

Palestinians will continue to live in misery so long as people like Hosni Mubarak and Bashar Al-Assad can score political points on their backs. If it weren't for their corruption and exploitation of the crisis, the Palestinians could have been resettled decades ago, just like the Germans in East Prussia were.

[Ramo]

If Russia's possession of Kaliningrad is legal, then so is Israel's conquest of East Jerusalem. Spoils of war isn't an idiotic theory, it's simply a statement of fact - those with power take from those without.

Sovereignty is a reflection of a state's ability to impose its authority without dispute. And if you haven't noticed, Israel isn't going to be able to do that for much longer East Jerusalem due to demographic shifts.

But sovereignty is not the issue here. Whether or not you are evicted from your house should be independent of whether or not Mexico and Canada partition Maryland. A person and a state are two different things. You can't interchange the concepts randomly.

If you're arguing it's a matter of time, then what exactly is the length of time that allows someone to take something over? Half a century is 50 years. Will Israeli settlements in the West Bank be okay with you in 2017?

I don't believe in immigration barriers.

And again with the person/state confusion. Israelis didn't settle all of the West Bank in 1967. They did settle parts of it early on, particularly East Jerusalem. And a lot of that will stay under possession of its current owners and under Israeli sovereignty.

[Felch]

Good answer.

[Ben Kenobi]

Sovereignty is a reflection of a state's ability to impose its authority without dispute. And if you haven't noticed, Israel isn't going to be able to do that for much longer East Jerusalem due to demographic shifts.

Ethnic cleansing is the way to go.

The difference between the two is that the Poles and the Lithuanians have competing claims over the territories. It's never been Russian.

Israel, like Poland, was invaded by larger powers who sought to wipe it off the map. Israel, unlike Poland won their war.

[Lancer]

Then I don't entirely understand why it's fine to kick these Palestinians out on the street because some other Palestinians celebrated 9/11

Yet another bad assumption Kuci. How many is this for you in one short conversation? It makes me wonder how you survive day to day. Do you get on a bus and just assume its going where you want it to? If so, let me assure you that that I'm not. You attribute to me these awful things because you wish to mock me, but believe me, reacting to others who don't hold your views in that way shows you in a negative light to an impartial viewer, (not KH) not me.

[Ramo]

Dude. In response to a story about a random set of 52 Palestinians being (probably) ****ed with, you posted images dismissing the story because a completely diffferent set of people were celebrating a horrific event. I believe the specific words you used were, "**** em, those people were already in the street." Not a whole lot of ways to interpret that.

[Lancer]

There's two that I can see.

[Lancer]

Ramo, regarding that horrific event, those people flew those planes into those buildings why?

Anyone?