Gulf Arab money 'behind purchases of Israeli land'

Vast tracts of Israeli agricultural land in north Israel's Galilee area
have been bought up by Arabs with financial backing from the Gulf,
Israeli public radio reported on Saturday.
It said dozens of hectares (acres) have been bought and that a local
farmers' association had tried in vain to warn the Israeli authorities
about the sale.

The radio station quoted Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon as saying
the affair was not a matter for his department since “it concerns
private land.”

Galilee and the Negev desert in the south are relatively lightly
populated, and Israel has a minister, Sylvan Shalom, charged
specifically with development.

Much of the country's Israeli Arab population of around 1.4 million
people lives in the Galilee.

On August 3 the Israeli parliament passed a controversial land reform
law that allows local officials to privatise publicly owned land,
triggering the ire of the Arab minority.

Arab MPs said the law, which is backed by hardline Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, would block efforts by Palestinians who fled the
creation of Israel in 1948 to recover their property or seek
compensation for what they have lost.

The new law allows local municipal officials to sell off state land in
urban centres and maintains a previous ban on the sale to non-Jews of
land controlled by the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael Jewish agency.
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