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Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960 (1960)

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aliasesIsrael Lands Administration Law, Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960, Israel Land Administration Law

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Summary

Israel’s Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960, passed by the Knesset on 25 July 1960: section 1 subjects the Law to the Basic Law: Israel Lands and to the Israel Lands Law, 5720-1960, whose meaning of “Israel lands” it adopts; section 2 requires the Government to establish an Israel Lands Administration to administer Israel lands, with a Government-appointed Director directly subordinate to the Minister of Agriculture, exempt from the vacancy-advertisement rule, and State employees as its staff; section 3 requires a Government-appointed Israel Lands Council to lay down the land policy the Administration follows, supervise its activities and approve its draft budget; section 4 requires annual reports by the Director to the Council and by the Government to the Knesset; and sections 5-6 amend the State Property Law, 5711-1951 and the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 5710-1950 so that neither the Government nor the Development Authority may sell, transfer, let or lease non-urban Israel lands over 100 dunams without the Council’s approval, the Director is an authorised actor for Israel lands, and every act under section 3 of the Development Authority law in respect of Israel lands is done by the Administration, whose sponsoring ministers for implementation are the Ministers of Finance and Agriculture jointly (Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960 (1960), PDF p.1-3).

What the file is

The English text of the Law in one 3-page file, about 812 words in the text copy: sections 1-7 and the signatories on PDF p.1-2, the passage footnote on PDF p.2, and footnotes (1)-(5) and closing source matter on PDF p.3. The closing matter identifies the source as Laws of the State of Israel: Authorized Translation from the Hebrew, Volume 14, Government Printer, Jerusalem, p. 50-2, (C) Israel Law Resource Center, February, 2007 — note the volume is 14 while the Law is of 1960, and the file’s footnotes cross-refer to the Basic Law and the Israel Lands Law as “supra, p. 48” and “supra, p. 49” in that volume’s arrangement. The Israel Lands Law, 5720-1960 itself is not in the file. The text copy was checked against the original at PDF p.1-2; the original reads the same, including the printed points recorded in Section by section and Open questions. No Hebrew text, table or figure appears in the file, apart from Hebrew-calendar dates.

Section by section

  • Section 1, Definitions; subjection to other Laws (PDF p.1). “Israel lands” has the same meaning as in the Basic Law: Israel Lands, and this Law’s provisions are subject to that Basic Law and to the Israel Lands Law, 5720-1960.
  • Section 2, The Israel Lands Administration, its Director and staff (PDF p.1). The Government shall establish an “Israel Lands Administration” to administer Israel lands. The Government shall appoint its Director; the obligation to advertise a vacancy under section 19A of the State Service (Appointments) Law, 5719-1959 shall not apply to his appointment; notice shall be published in Reshumot; the Director is directly subordinate to the Minister of Agriculture, in whom a Minister’s powers under that Law vest. The Administration’s employees shall be State employees.
  • Section 3, Israel Lands Council (PDF p.1). The Government shall appoint an “Israel Lands Council” which shall lay down the land policy in accordance with which the Administration shall act, shall supervise the Administration’s activities and shall approve the draft of its budget, which shall be fixed by Law. The file states no composition, size or appointing constituency for the Council.
  • Section 4, Reports (PDF p.1). The Director shall submit to the Council, at least once a year, a report on the Administration’s activities; the Government shall submit a report on the Administration’s activities, at least once a year, to the Knesset.
  • Section 5, Amendment of State Property Law, 5711-1951 (PDF p.1-2). Section 5(b) of that Law is replaced by a bar, save with the Israel Lands Council’s approval, on the Government selling, otherwise transferring ownership of, or letting or leasing Israel lands that are not urban land and exceed 100 dunams. A paragraph is added to its section 6(a) making the Director of the Israel Lands Administration, or a person he authorises, an actor in respect of Israel lands, and the words “or the Director of the Administration of Israel Lands” — a third naming form for the body in this Law — are added to its section 6(c).
  • Section 6, Amendment of the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 5710-1950 (PDF p.2). The section heading is printed “Amendment of theDevelopment Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 5710-1950”, as printed. The opening words of that Law’s section 3 are replaced so its competence runs “Subject to the Basic Law: Israel Lands and the Israel Law, 5720-1960” — “the Israel Law”, with “Lands” missing, as printed, where section 1 of this Law gives the title correctly as the Israel Lands Law. Its section 3(4)(a)-(d) are replaced by the same Council-approval bar, for the Development Authority, on selling, transferring, letting or leasing non-urban Israel lands over 100 dunams. A closing passage is added after its section 3(10): “Every act under this section in respect of Israel lands shall be done by the Israel Lands Administration.” Its section 4 is repealed, and the passage in its section 5 from “the Development Authority shall not incur any expenditure” to the end of the section is deleted.
  • Section 7, Implementation and Regulations (PDF p.2). The Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture jointly are charged with implementation and may make regulations on any matter relating to it.
  • Signatories and passage footnote (PDF p.2). Signed by David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, Minister of Finance, Moshe Dayan, Minister of Agriculture, and the President of the State, printed “YTTZCHAK BEN-ZVI”, as printed. Passed by the Knesset on 1st Av, 5720 (25th July, 1960) and published in, as printed, “Sefer-Ha-Chukkim” No. 312 of “the 5th, Av, 5720” (29th July, 1960), p. 57; the Bill and an Explanatory Note were published in Hatza’ot Chok No. 413 of 5720, p. 36 — the same Hatza’ot Chok number as the Basic Law’s Bill, at its p. 34.
  • Footnotes (PDF p.3). (1) The Basic Law: Sefer Ha-Chukkim No. 312 of 5720, p. 56; supra, p. 48. (2) The Israel Lands Law: the same issue, p. 56; supra, p. 49. (3) State Service (Appointments) Law: Sefer Ha-Chukkim No. 279 of 5719, p. 86; LSI vol. XIII, p. 87. (4) State Property Law: No. 68 of 5711, p. 52; LSI vol. V, p. 45. (5) Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law: No. 57 of 5710, p. 278; LSI vol. IV, p. 151.

Key passages

  • “The Government shall establish an” (section 2(a), PDF p.1; the name Israel Lands Administration follows in the text in quotation marks)
  • “which shall lay down the land policy in accordance with which the Administration shall act” (section 3, on the Israel Lands Council, PDF p.1)
  • “Save with the approval of the Israel Lands Council, the Government shall not sell, or otherwise transfer the ownership of, or let or lease, Israel lands” (new section 5(b) of the State Property Law, in section 5(1), PDF p.1)
  • “Every act under this section in respect of Israel lands shall be done by the Israel Lands Administration” (added to the Development Authority law’s section 3, in section 6(3), PDF p.2)

Evidence the work relies on

A statute, not an evidentiary work. Its internal authorities are the enactments it is subject to or amends: the Basic Law: Israel Lands and the Israel Lands Law, 5720-1960 (section 1), the State Service (Appointments) Law, 5719-1959 (section 2), the State Property Law, 5711-1951 (section 5), and the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 5710-1950 (section 6), each cited in a footnote. None of those texts is reproduced in the file beyond the amended passages quoted in sections 5-6.

Analysis

The Law creates an administrator and a policymaker and leaves the substantive land rules to the two laws it is subject to. Its own operative content is institutional: a single Administration for all Israel lands, whoever of the three Basic Law holders holds them; a Director appointed without advertisement and answerable to the Minister of Agriculture; a Council, appointed by the Government with no composition stated in this file, that sets land policy, supervises and approves the budget draft; and a 100-dunam, non-urban threshold below or within which the Council-approval bar in sections 5-6 does not bite. Sections 5-6 also shift execution: by the added closing passage, acts of the Development Authority under its section 3 in respect of Israel lands are done by the Administration, so the Authority retains its competence in form, expressly subjected to the Basic Law and the Israel Lands Law, while the Administration performs it. Because the Council’s composition is not in this file, the representation other sources describe — in particular any Keren Kayemet Le-Israel or Jewish National Fund seats — cannot be confirmed or denied from this source, and is held in Open questions rather than imported.

People, organizations, places and events

Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960, Israel Land Administration, Basic Law: Israel Lands, Development Authority, Knesset, Israel, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan

Concepts

none

How it relates to other sources

This is the primary text of the third law of the 1960 package. Palestinian Right of Return: Sacred, Legal, and Possible dates the package to a settlement of 25 July 1960 — the passage date of this Law (PDF p.2) — comprising the Basic Law: Israel Lands, the Israel Lands Law and this Law, and gives the resulting Administration’s 1961 title figures and its control, in Abu Sitta’s later summary, of 92.6% of Israel’s area (For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, PDF p.38; see Israel Land Administration). Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation states that the Israel Land Administration, created in the early 1960s to manage all state lands, must administer JNF lands according to the JNF’s own criteria and that the JNF holds half the seats on the ILA Council (PDF p.200-201); this Law creates the Administration and the Council but states no Council composition and no JNF criterion, so Makdisi’s two specifics rest on texts outside this file — the Israel Lands Law of the same package is the candidate named in section 1 — and the difference is held on Israel Lands Administration Law, 5720-1960, not reconciled. The Development Authority amendments in section 6 complete, in this batch, the Authority’s trajectory in the wiki: named conditionally in the Absentees’ Property Law as the Custodian’s only permitted purchaser, it is here subjected to the Basic Law, barred from larger non-urban transactions without Council approval, and stripped of execution in favour of the Administration.

Open questions

  • The Israel Lands Law, 5720-1960, to which section 1 subjects this Law and from which the Council’s composition and any holder representation may come, is not in the file, so the Council’s membership cannot be stated from this source.
  • Section 6(1) prints the title as “the Israel Law, 5720-1960”, the section 6 heading prints “theDevelopment” without a space, the President signs as “YTTZCHAK BEN-ZVI”, and the passage footnote prints “Sefer-Ha-Chukkim” and “the 5th, Av”; all are recorded as printed and checked against the original.
  • The body is named three ways in this one Law — “Israel Lands Administration” (sections 2, 6(3)), “the Administration of Israel Lands” (section 5(3)) — and in other sources as Israel Land Administration and Israeli Lands Authority; the namings are each source’s own and are kept as printed, as noted on Israel Lands Administration.
  • The file gives no area or proportion for the lands the Administration administers, and no date for the Administration’s actual establishment beyond the Law’s passage on 25 July 1960.

Coverage

PDF p.1-3 of 3, read in full.

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