forcibly displaced during and after the war; additionally, a Custodian of Absentee Property was appointed to ‘Judea and Samaria’.141 In April 2015, the Israeli Supreme Court legalized the use of the Absentee Property Law in occupied East Jerusalem in order to confiscate lands in Jerusalem belonging to Palestinians living in the West Bank, and retroactively legalized any action that had been taken by the Custodian in applying the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem. The court did, however, state that in future instances the law could only be applied in rare circumstances.142 From 1967 to 1979, in direct violation of its obligations as an Occupying Power, Israel confiscated lands under the guise of military necessity, which were later utilized for the establishment of permanent colonies. In 1979, the Israeli High Court ruled in the Dweikat case (“Elon Moreh” ruling) that colonies cannot be considered a ‘security necessity’ and private land cannot be used for the purpose of their establishment.143 In this case, the court held that colonies could only be built on land that had been confiscated for specific purposes insofar as construction was consistent with those purposes. Concerned by the restrictions imposed by this decision, the Israeli authorities sought an alternative means by which to acquire land for the purpose of colony construction and expansion. They appropriated a provision of the Order-inCouncil enacted under the British Mandate that defined “public lands” as “all lands in Palestine subject to the control of the government” and those “which are or shall be acquired for the public service or otherwise.”144 Taking advantage of suspensions of land registration some eleven years earlier,145 Israeli authorities began to declare vast swathes of land as ‘state land’.146 However, in 2017, this ruling was effectively overturned when Israel issued the ‘Regularization Law’, which retroactively legalized colonial outposts built on private Palestinian lands.147 Two other mechanisms of land confiscation – both illegal under international 141 Order Regarding Abandoned Property (Private Property) (Judea and Samaria), 5727-1967. 142 Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), “Legal Memo: The Absentee Property Law and its Application to East Jerusalem,” February 2017, available at: https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/legal-opinions/ absentee_law_memo.pdf [22 September 2017]. 143 Peace Now, “The Bluff Behind Land Takeovers as a Military Necessity Revealed,” July 2016, available at: http://peacenow.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/bluff-revealed.pdf [accessed 22 September 2017]. 144 George Emile Bisharat, “Land, Law and Legitimacy in Israel and the Occupied Territories,” American University Law Review 43, no. 2 (Winter 1994): 539. 145 Raja Shehadeh, “From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel And the Palestinian Territories,” BRILL, (1 January 1997): 81. 146 Raja Shehadeh, “The Land Law of Palestine: An Analysis of the Definition of State Lands,” Journal of Palestine Studies 11, no. 2 (January 1982): 95. 147 The Settlement Regularization in Judea and Samaria Law, 5777-2017. 54