Jews, like people of other nations, could live wherever they like. Scores of Arabs live in Israel, and Jews can similarly live in the Palestinian entity-turned-state. Israeli Arabs live in homogenous villages, and Jews can live in settlements. Arabs claim the property they owned in Israel before her independence, and Jews can claim real estate they owned in settlements before Palestinian state was created. Foreign citizens, including many Jordanian spouses of Israeli Arabs reside in Israel, and Israeli citizens can reside in Palestinian state. Two generations of Jews were born in the settlements of Judea and Samaria; birth in the land, especially land without statehood, confers right of residence. Historically, many Jews resided in Muslim states, and Arabs claim the Jews left of their own volition; Palestinian state can be a test ground for peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs.
When Britain left Hong Kong and other colonies, it didn’t demolish the towns and forced its citizens back to Albion; on the contrary, it negotiated safe stay of British nationals. Some French similarly left in Algiers and Indochina after the colonial power withdrew, and moved to France much later because of safety concerns. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia abandoned its colonists in previously annexed Baltic states; most received citizenship of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Even when US evacuated its military bases (not peaceful colonies) from Philippines, many American citizens remained in the islands.
Israeli entity, however, plans to demolish Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria and evict Jews before transferring the territories to Arab rule. International law doesn’t justify such move. Poland and Czechoslovakia repatriated ethnic Germans after WWII, but crucially, they were expelled by the host states, not forcefully removed by Germany. In Israeli situation, that would equal to Palestine expelling the Jews instead of Israel pulling them out. Israeli eviction of her citizens from the settlements is without precedent, but also illegal. Israel refuses to expel the Arabs who legally reside in the Jewish state, but expels the Jews who resided in the settlements according to law of the land (Israeli military law) before the Palestinian state was created.
Israeli government cannot evict Jews from settlements because it cares for their safety. Governments of free countries issue safety warnings to their citizens; forcing someone to accept protection is racket. Nor could the government evict the Jews because it owns the land through the Jewish Agency; settlers have right of use of that land after they legally built houses on it. Government compensation for demolished houses confirms that they were destroyed illegally; otherwise, why compensation?
The eviction amounts to forced population transfer, a war crime. To comply with human rights standards, transfer must be voluntary; each person must have an option to stay in his current place of residence. Article 7 of International Criminal Court (Rome statute) declares forcible transfer a crime against humanity. Forcible transfer is a form of ethnic cleansing. International Criminal Tribunal convicted Yugoslavian officials for exactly the crime Israelis committed in Gush Katif.
Israel evicts Jews from the settlements based solely on totalitarian doctrine that sovereign governments exercise full discretion over their subjects. Republican (liberal) democracies established legal safeguards of private choices. Free countries recognize their citizens’ rights to stay anywhere, including abroad. Soviet Union prohibited its Jews to emigrate to Israel; Israel prohibits its Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Free countries ban their citizens from visiting hostile states, thus Americans cannot visit Iran or Cuba. Such restrictions are war effort, intended to pressure an enemy; the ban extends on politicians, common citizens, and corporations. Israeli situation is different: its politicians regularly visit Palestine, its companies do business with it, and both countries officially seek to remove hostilities rather than apply additional pressure. Travel or residence ban on Israeli citizens who wish to live in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, lacks legal precedent.
Liberal democracies cannot pass any law they wish. They cannot mandate their citizens to walk on one leg, live in single-story buildings only, or to not live in some places. Israel prohibits its citizens to live in officially abandoned settlements. Even if Jewish houses there are demolished, the land remains public, unused. People can freely walk such land and live there without erecting buildings; public land is available for non-profit use by default. If Jewish houses are not yet demolished, Israeli government cannot mandate its citizens to vacate their dwellings.
Israel evicts the Jews not only from public land held by the Jewish Agency, but also from Jewish private land legally purchased from Arabs. Jews should sell their private plots to foreign trusts. Israel has no jurisdiction over foreign-owned property on foreign (Palestinian) land. Same holds for houses in Hebron: Israel only restricts Jewish purchases there; foreigners can buy houses and lease them to Jews.
Doctrine of eminent domain allows governments to buy out private real estate at fair price. It does not, however, let the government ban its citizens from returning to the empty land; Israel not only evicts the Jews, but also bans them from returning after the buildings are destroyed. Only sovereigns can practice eminent domain; Israel refuses sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, and cannot evict the settlers through eminent domain.
Governments destroy private real estate through the doctrine of nuisance when the property in question clearly damages nearby communities. Such reasoning is applied to dangerous factories, for example. Imagining that the settlements represent nuisance to Israelis by impending the peace process is empirically unsound: peace did not prevail forty years ago before the settlements appeared, nor did it follow the withdrawal from Gaza. Nuisance law allows demolishing property, not evicting citizens.
Israeli government behaves illegally toward its citizens, not outsiders. Israel demolished no Arab villages just in the name of public interest. Arab lands were taken only for specific military projects, fully satisfying the criterion of narrow public interest. Compared to other countries, legalistic Israel is averse to practicing eminent domain; scores of abandoned Arab properties clutter Israeli cities.
If Jews abandon Israeli citizenship, Israel will be legally unable to discriminate against them and will not demolish the settlements.
