The Settlement Machine

Before we left, I decided to do some research on the Israeli settlement "system".

The process is well documented. Akiva Eldar wrote in Ha'aretz, 2005 :

Right under the noses, in the best case, of prime ministers, chiefs of staff and
GOCs of the Central Command, who are responsible for "Judea and Samaria"
(the West Bank), among them Barak himself, the State of Israel has imposed
the law of the jungle on those territories.

This is what happens in the jungle :

Building companies owned and managed by settler leaders and land dealers acquire
lands from Palestinian crooks and transfer them to the Custodian of
Government Property in the Israel Lands Administration. The custodian
"converts" the lands to "state lands," leases them back to settler
associations that then sell them to building companies.

and furthermore :

The Justice Ministry has responded that "property will be considered government
property as long as the opposite has not been proven. Hence, it is possible to
declare that privately owned land is government property, only if the owners of
the land have asked the Custodian of Government Property to manage the
property."

Here's the entire land theft article.

So there we have the crux of the issue. Under the Occupation there is a reverse onus of proof. The fact that land has been owned by your family for generations means nothing if a rogue settler decides he likes the look of it. The onus is then on the owner to prove title. In the court of a foreign, occupying country.