32 Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians to registration in the Land Registry. The Mulk Tithes Act of 1874 also introduced the obligation to register mulk lands. Nevertheless, the established process of land registration began in earnest, “at the beginning of the British Mandate period (1920 -1948). Great Britain established special Land Courts to address the complex land situation. These courts maintained the effort to enforce the Ottoman Land Code, including the drive for individual registration”.117 The process of land settlement involved a highly complicated and lengthy investigation into the land of entire villages and the categories of land therein. The categories and their owners were then documented. The designation of ownership was based on the Ottoman legislation relating to the use of land and which category it fell into. This process of land registration was sustained under Jordanian rule (1949 -1967). However, in 1968 the Israeli Military Commander passed the Order concerning Land and Water Settlement (Judea and Samaria) (No. 291) – an order which forbade any further land settlement and put a halt to any settlements or registrations being presented at the time. Halt of land settlements was a deliberate and strategic step that paved the way to the systematic Israeli policy of land confiscation. Effectively, unsettled lands are unregistered and subjected to confiscation. Historically, land registration in the West Bank has been low for a number of reasons including: to avoid taxation and the unimportance of registration for exercising land rights. Since Israel stopped any form of registration in 1967, only 37 percent of all West Bank land has been registered.118 Land not registered with the Land Registry is usually only documented in the Jordanian Property Tax Registry. The Jordanian Property Tax Registry does not provide conclusive proof of ownership, but rather a de facto defence against land seizures. A major problem with property tax registrations is that they do not specify the exact size or location of the plot nor include a map, which makes it difficult for landowners to prove their ownership over a specific plot. All Land Registry registrations include a map of the plot thereby ensuring specificity. Even if land has been registered with the Land Registry, this does not guarantee an absolutely conclusive right to ownership of the land in the current Israeli legal system. As previously noted, in order to guarantee its ownership, the Ottoman legislation requires cultivation or a particular use of the land. 117 Bisharat, ‘Land, Law and Legitimacy in Israel and the Occupied Territories’, 495. 118 PNA and LAND, Palestinian National Authority Land Administration Project, Legal Report (March 2008); available from http://www.husseini1.com/resources/file/publications/1273744294012/ Legal%20Report,%20Palestinian%20National%20Authority,%20Palestinian%20Land%20 Administration,%20Ministry%20of%20Planning,%202008.pdf; accessed 26 April 2013.