Israeli authorities,103 and al-Araqib was considered an illegal village under Israeli law.104 This discriminatory decision was the first step within a series of policies used by Israel to forcibly displace the inhabitants of al-Araqib from their homes and lands.105 Public Purposes Israel has confiscated large amounts of Palestinian land inside Israel under the pretext that it was being confiscated for ‘public purposes.’ Article 2 of the 1943 Land Ordinance defined public purpose as “any purpose certified by the Minister of Finance to be a public purpose.”106 That same law permits land confiscation to expand an existing road, to build a new road, a public park or a stadium.107 As presented in the table of laws, on February 2010 the Knesset passed an amendment to the 1943 Land Ordinance in order to ensure that Palestinian lands confiscated for public purposes would not be returned to their Palestinian owners.108 This amendment confirmed the Israeli ownership of Palestinian lands confiscated for public purposes, even in cases when the land was never used for such purpose. This was achieved by expanding the authority of the Israeli Minister of Finance to allow for the alteration of the purpose of confiscation if the initial purpose is not realized. The amendment also states that land confiscated for public purposes does not have to be used for its declared purposes for 17 years. Additionally, it states that the owner of the property does not have the right to have this property returned if more than 25 years have passed since the confiscation occurred.109 Moreover, the new law expands the definition of public purposes to include “the establishment of new towns and the expansion or development of existing towns.”110 103 Oren Yiftachel, Ahmad Amara, and Sandy Kedar, “Israel Says Bedouin ‘Trespass’ on State Land”, Haaretz, 1 January 2014, available at: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.566357 [accessed 21 September 2017]. 104 Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Bedouin Facing Mass Evictions From Their Land,” 30 August 2013, available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/30/israel-bedouin-facing-mass-evictions-theirland [accessed 21 September 2017]. 105 Nadia Ben-Youssef, Suhad Bishara, and Rina Rosenberg, “From Al-Araqib to Susiya: The forced displacement of Palestinians on Both Sides of the Green Line,” Adalah, May 2013. 106 Yifat Holzman-Gazit, Land Expropriation in Israel: Law, Culture and Society, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 13. 107 POICA, “’For Public Purposes’ The Israeli Finance Minister requests the acquisition of 102 dunums of land in Bethlehem Governorate,” 18 December 2015,available at: http://poica.org/2015/12/forpublic-purposes-the-israeli-finance-minister-requests-the-acquisition-of-102-dunums-of-land-inbethlehem-governorate/ [accessed 21 September 2017]. 108 Adalah, “Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance - Amendment No. 10,” 2010, available at: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/502 [accessed 21 September 2017]. 109 Ibid. 110 Adalah, “Knesset Enacts New Amendment to the Land Ordinance of 1943 to Block Palestinian Claims for Land Previously Confiscated by the State,” 25 February 2010, available at: https://www.adalah. org/en/content/view/7677 [accessed 21 September 2017]. 42