Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Bayit Yehudi faction chairwoman MK Shuli Mualem, and Bayit Yehudi CEO Nir Orbach on Monday toured the neighborhood of Giv’at Amal, a residential neighborhood of north Tel Aviv, located near the affluent Bavli and Park Central neighborhoods. This is the most expensive real estate in north Tel Aviv, where a humble one-bedroom apartment can fetch upwards of $1 million, and the price of a new, larger one, goes through the roof. Yet the residents of Giv’at Amal have low incomes, their homes are old and sparse, much of the neighborhood is unpaved — a kind of shantytown in the heart of the thriving metropolis.
During the 1948 War of Independence, the neighborhood was populated by Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who defended the city against local Arab thugs. Then Prime Minister David Ben Gurion promised the residents ownership of their land, but shortly thereafter, in 1954, the Tel-Aviv Yafo municipality issued an eviction edict against the newcomers. Their residency status has been under dispute since then, as official land ownership exchanged hands over the years among various developers and the residents, whose third generation continues to live under threat of eviction. In 2014, seven local families were evicted, either following a financial settlement or through a court order.
The local residents claim that even though they have been trying to purchase their properties since the 1950s, the state concealed from them the fact that by law they had first refusal rights. Eventually the land and the people were sold off in 1961 by Israel Land Authority, unbeknownst to the people. That first secret deal was actually supposed to create proper housing that would offer a fitting alternative dwelling for the residents. But the deal collapsed after the buyer hadn’t lived up to its terms — except the state never took back the rights, which continued to be traded from one developer to another.
Institutional memory being short in young, dynamic countries, eventually a succession of new owners of the land, along with the ILA and the city of Tel Aviv, started facing a succession of lawsuits claiming they were squatters without real rights — which some of them likely have been.
At this point the land is owned by three major entrepreneurs, including Itzhak T’shuva of natural gas deal fame, the Cozhinof family, and Arik Abramovitch. They are engaged in several court battles to get rid of the remaining residents.
Enter Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who over the past three years has been working with the residents of Giv’at Amal (the name means Labor Hill), and in the previous Knesset worked alongside MK Dov Hanin, of the Communist Party, which is now part of the Joint Arab List (go figure), to find an equitable and honorable solution for the neighborhood people.
On Monday, during the much publicized visit, Shaked said in a statement, “We will not allow the state to abandon the residents of Giv’at Amal. Yetserday’s shield will not be turned into today’s punching bag. The lack of enforcement of past deals has created an irreversible erosion of the rights of the residents. The state must create, through legislation, a fair, collective compensation, in order to end this sad saga of years of suffering by the residents of Giv’at Amal, and to permit them a new, decent life.”
MK Mualem said that a bill to cover the equitable solution of the dispute with the residents would be submitted in the coming days to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. And since the Justice Minister chairs the committee, it can be expected to pass initial approval.