By Hussein Abu Hussein & Fiona McKay

Publisher: Zed Books, 2003

ISBN: 1-84277-122-1

Pages: 256

London: Zed, 2003

I arrived in Sakhnin village in summer 1999, to stay with a Palestinian family before I began my MA in Middle East Politics back in the UK. To be honest, I didn’t know much about the situation for Palestinians in the Galilee before my visit. Galilee is not the West Bank and Gaza, so what exactly was going on there? My not so friendly welcome by Israeli airport security gave me a clue as to the regard Palestinians with Israeli passports are held in by the state. 

My second encounter with the apartheid system followed soon thereafter. I discovered that my host family’s house was under a demolition order. The Israelis could arrive potentially any day with the bulldozers to destroy the family’s new house, built amongst the olive trees on land owned by the family for generations.

The Israelis did not recognize their ownership. Their land was apparently declared part of the Jewish municipality of Misgav, which had not given them permission to build. And so I learnt from day one that the occupation and denial of Palestine extends way beyond the 1967 borders. Apartheid exists at the heart of what is undisputed as the Israeli state, recognized from Europe to the USA, from Egypt to Jordan.

When I returned to university I was keen to pursue further research into the ongoing confiscation of land from Palestinians in the 1948 areas, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. I discovered that, apart from a few notable exceptions, there is relatively little written on this important topic. Land confiscation and discrimination exist inside the “only democracy in the Middle East .” The situation of Palestinians who are actually citizens of Israel is arguably one of the best cases for proving the inherently racist nature of Zionism, the concept of a Jewish state for one people. Too few people, both Arab and Western, are aware of this.

It was thus with great pleasure (alongside the accompanying anger resulting from the subject matter) that I discovered a new book describing the denial of Palestinian land rights inside the Jewish state. Access Denied is the result of meticulous research by Palestinian lawyer Hussein Abu Hussein and his British counterpart Fiona McKay. This is a book that will destroy any argument that a) Israel treats its own citizens equally, or b) that the inequality will be magically remedied by a simple withdrawal to the 1967 armistice line. While an end to the military occupation would be a huge step forward, alone it would not bring justice for the Palestinians.

Abu Hussein & McKay put Israel’s denial of land to 150,000 Palestinians left inside the area occupied by Israel in 1948 under the microscope. Today’s million strong Palestinian community represents 20% of the Israeli population, but only retains a tiny fraction of the land. Palestinians are second-class citizens in Israel, and, apart from a token few, are unrepresented at the policy making stage.

Land confiscation did not end in 1948; it is a very real experience for Palestinians today. In addition to their academic legal qualifications, both authors have been actively involved in campaigning for the rights of Palestinians inside Israel, and thus can speak from firsthand experience of the system.

Access Denied covers the land issue from a legal perspective. Densely packed with facts and case studies, this is not a book to be read all in one go, but it’s worth reading section by section regardless of background; those who simply want to know more about the situation; for campaigners who need to get a wider picture of the whole Palestinian experience; for researchers in need of more detailed information. Jargon-free, it is perfectly readable for those with no legal background. It’s also ideal for those who want case studies for presentations and articles, but don’t know where to begin looking.

The book’s coverage is extensive, from the policies initiated in the 50s by Ben-Gurion to “Judaize the Galilee ” in the north, to the dispossession of the Bedouin in the Negev in the south. Find out more about Arab villages not “recognized” by the Israeli state, despite the fact that many existed pre-1948. Around 80 000 Palestinians are living on land that is officially “not zoned for building,” and residents live with a permanent fear of the bulldozer.

While Israel claims not to discriminate in the allocation of land on the basis of race, it delegates the job to quasi-governmental institutions that do. The Jewish National Fund (JNF), for example, is given the state powers to acquire and distribute land, yet its own mandate is to build a homeland for the Jewish people only. By delegating the apartheid work to other agencies, the Israeli state maintains a facade of democracy for the benefit of the outside world, when in fact it is a democracy for only one religious group.

This book comes highly recommended as new resource material, regardless of how widely read you are on the subject. It’s the kind of book you can turn to for a snappy fact when you only have ten minutes to write a sharp letter to your newspaper or MP.

Land confiscation is nothing new. The strategy of dispossession has been used for generations across the land of formerly Mandate Palestine. This books draw attention to the fact that the very nature of a Jewish state means a land for Jews, and thus a land without non-Jews. It is not anti-Semitic to say this out loud; claiming a land for one ethno-religious group at the expense of another is by definition discriminatory.

There can be no solution to the injustice in Palestine without addressing Israeli policies towards Palestinians inside the 1948 borders. Land confiscation is a strategy used against Palestinians wherever they live, and is a necessary strategy if a state is to be preserved for Jews only, as Zionism dictates. It is naïve to think that a two state solution will result in justice for Palestinians inside Israel . Abu Hussein and McKay present a frightening eye-opener for anyone who has not faced up to the ethnic discrimination inherent in the notion of a state defined as solely Jewish.

Isabelle Humphries is conducting PhD research at St. Mary’s College, University of Surrey, on the situation for Palestinian refugees living inside the 1948 borders. She has worked for three years with Palestinian NGOs, and as a freelance writer, on both sides of the 1967 border. You can reach her at innazareth@yahoo.co.uk

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