Land Confiscation Introduction 47 development in the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city, the Local Outline Plan does not plan for enough housing units in the Palestinian areas to sufficiently address current shortfalls or accommodate the projected growth in population. Further, the master plan identifies maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city as one of its main aims and adds 5 square kilometers for the expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. This policy of demographic balance, a stated aim of official municipal planning documents, is discriminatory and thus violates human rights law.182 Confiscation for Public Purposes After the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel began to confiscate land under the pretext of using it for ‘public purposes’.183 The 1943 Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance and its relevant amendments are key to this practice. This Ordinance is seen by many as “the main general land expropriation law in force in Israel today”.184 BADIL and COHRE note that by 1999, approximately 24,500 dunums (24.5 km2) of land in and around Jerusalem was expropriated using the above ordinance, most of which was privately owned Palestinian lands.185 The Ordinance is a mandate-era law authorizing the Finance Minister to deem tracts of land confiscated under the guise of ‘public purpose’. A previous Supreme Court ruling had once allowed that if land, which was initially confiscated for a particular purpose was not being used for that particular purpose, the affected landowner might seek to reclaim that land. However, a 2010 amendment to the law was enacted authorizing the State not to use the land for the original purpose for a period of 17 years should they wish. Further, landowners are prevented from seeking reclamation of the land if it was passed to a third party or was confiscated for over 25 years.186 182 Raquel Rolnik, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-discrimination in This Context (December 24, 2012), 11–12; available from http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ resources/A-HRC-22-46_Add1_en.pdf. 183 Rolnik, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-discrimination in This Context, 57. 184 See for example, Alexandre Kedar, Israeli Law and the Redemption of Arab Land, 1948-1969 (1996), 155. 185 BADIL and COHRE, Ruling Palestine, 132. 186 Adalah, Inequality Report: The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel (February 2011), 23–24; available from http://adalah.org/upfiles/Christian%20Aid%20Report%20December%202010%20FINAL(1).pdf.