Israel Land Authority

Israel Land Authority Hebrew: רשות מקרקעי ישראל‎‎ Arabic: إسرائيل سلطة الأراضي‎‎ ("Raeshoot Mekarka'ei Yisrael") is a governmental body created as a part of a reform of the Israel Land Administration. After all the organizational changes and staff rearrangements it will replace the Israel Land Administration.

"The Basic Law: Israel Lands" establishes the principle that Israel Lands are nationally owned, and they can only be leased, not sold. So land buyers are granted only lessee's rights, formally not full ownership rights. Based on this law and several other laws Israel Land Administration was created in 1960. It's an organization supervising the proper use of lands in the public domain and managing some 93% of Israeli lands.

Starting from the beginning of the 2000s there is an ongoing debate including governmental officials whether different issues arising from the national ownership of the land can be solved. On July 12, 2003 and on February 4, 2004 the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee met as the committee for the Constitution by Broad Consensus to discuss this problem.

Several academic experts have challenged the necessity to keep 93% of public lands owned by the state, Professor Hanoch Dagan of Tel Aviv University and Professor Rachelle Alterman of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology among them. They noted that the law allows certain exceptions to the prohibition on selling state lands and suggested that there is no need in changing (constitutional) basic laws – these exceptions could be broadened by ordinary legislation.

According to Professor Joshua Weisman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem states that in fact leaser's rights are equal to that of the owner. This is because:

He also believes that the main principle of the Basic Law: Israel Lands should remain unchanged since it is one of the fundamental features of the Israeli legal system. Another reason is that Israel is a small country with limited land reserves.

Influenced by this debate, in April 2009 Israeli Ministry of Finance has issued a paper offering basic reforms for Israeli economy in 2009-2010. It said “to pass the law on the land ownership to let all lessees holding lease contracts for housing and employment (gain full ownership rights)”. It was suggested to create a new government agency for this purpose – Israel Land Authority. The reform should start from urban lands, but some parts of this paper also noted the importance of privatizing agricultural lands. Financial experts of the ministry saw Israel Land Administration is the main impediment for the economic development of the state since main economic activities depend upon the flexibility of the land reserves.

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Wikipedia