{"id":19417,"date":"2026-02-21T05:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=19417"},"modified":"2026-02-21T05:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:26:25","slug":"israel-repeals-antisemitic-apartheid-law-in-judea-and-samaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=19417","title":{"rendered":"Israel repeals antisemitic apartheid law in Judea and Samaria"},"content":{"rendered":"


By Joshua Arnold<\/span><\/span>, Op-ed contributor Thursday, February 19, 2026<\/span>The Israeli flag made from steel placed at Matan Lookout overlooking the hills of Samaria also known as Nablus Mountains located on the Gidonim ridge (a hilltop on which several Jewish settlements are located), above the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank. <\/span> | Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

The Israeli Security Cabinet\u00a0repealed\u00a0a racist law that prevented Jews from buying land in Judea and Samaria, and naturally the whole world is blaming them for it. <\/p>\n

On Feb. 8, the cabinet repealed a legal provision dating back to 1973, in what was then called the Jordanian \u201cWest Bank,\u201d which prohibited the sale of any land to a Jew (or any non-Arab) on pain of death and property. The change will now \u201callow Jews to purchase land in Judea and Samaria just as they purchase [land] in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,\u201d ministers said.<\/p>\n

Let the rights activists so eager to find a modern-day example of \u201cJim Crow\u201d finally end their search. Here is a discriminatory law every bit as noxious as American segregation laws or South African apartheid. A certain group of people with a long history of oppression against them were forbidden to purchase property, except through corporations \u2014 in their own homeland, no less.<\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s 1973 \u201cLaw\u00a0to Prevent the Sale of Land to the Enemy,\u201d stiffened the penalty for the pre-existing crime of selling land in the \u201cWest Bank\u201d to \u201cforeigners\u201d from five years in prison to death. Obviously, the \u201cforeigners\u201d in mind who were eager to buy land on the Western bank of the Jordan River were Jews, eager to return to their biblical homeland \u2014 places like Hebron, Shiloh, and Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

At least the designation of \u201cenemy\u201d made more sense at the time, as Jordan and its Arab neighbors combined against Israel that year in the Six-Day War. But the law should have been rendered null and void in the 1990s, when the Palestine Liberation Organization\u00a0agreed\u00a0to scuttle any laws that violated the Oslo Accords. However, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in 1997 it would still enforce the law, and 16 land dealers received a death sentence over the next month, according to Israeli intelligence. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not officially signed off on a death sentence since 2006, but plentiful reports suggest that extrajudicial killings continue.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the PA \u201cstrongly denounced\u201d the Israeli cabinet\u2019s move to repeal its illegal law, calling it an \u201cattempt to legalize settlement expansion, land confiscation, and the demolition of Palestinian properties.\u201d But the statement\u2019s hyperbole undermines its persuasiveness. Conflating \u201cland sale\u201d and \u201cland confiscation\u201d is as absurd as saying my wife robbed a grocery store on Friday by wheeling out a cartload of goods after paying for them. At root, this statement is an admission that the PA cannot prevent its own subjects from selling land to Israeli citizens without death threats.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the terror group Hamas also felt obliged to weigh in, even though it plays no role whatsoever in the administration of Judea and Samaria. The terror group that is supposed to be reaching a peace agreement with Israel\u00a0called\u00a0on Palestinians to launch a \u201crebellion across the West Bank and Jerusalem\u201d involving \u201cescalation by all available means of the conflict with the occupation and its settlers, in order to thwart the projects of annexation, Judaziation and displacement.\u201d<\/p>\n

How obliging of Hamas to provide another exhibit for why Israel wants sovereign control over all the territory within its borders.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Israeli Security Cabinet\u2019s decision on land sales comes amid a flurry of small changes in the administration of Judea and Samaria. On February 8, the cabinet also\u00a0declassified\u00a0land registries so potential buyers can identify landowners and canceled the requirement for a transaction license. Then on February 15, it\u00a0approved\u00a0\u201cthe registration of extensive areas in Judea and Samaria that belong to the state in the name of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli Security Cabinet also\u00a0moved\u00a0to increase its oversight and enforcement of public services in PA-administered territory to alleviate wastewater violations, damage to archaeological sites, and environmental hazards. It also transferred authority over the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel\u2019s Tomb in Bethlehem to sole Israeli control.<\/p>\n

In response to international pushback, alleging that Israel violated international agreements, the cabinet\u00a0said its action \u201cconstitutes an appropriate response to the illegal settlement procedures that the Palestinian Authority is promoting.\u201d In other words, Israel refuses to be the only party that adheres to an \u201cagreement\u201d the other side repeatedly violates, even if global antisemitism means they will inevitably receive all the blame.<\/p>\n

Settler advocacy organization Regavim\u00a0celebrated\u00a0the changes, saying that a more forceful Israeli role in the administration of land in Judea and Samaria \u201cbrings an end to a disgraceful freeze of nearly six decades that created a severe legal and administrative vacuum and opened the door to prolonged land disputes, document forgery and large-scale, unlawful land seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, despite domestic endorsement of the plan, Israel may be charting a lonely course for itself in international affairs. The security cabinet\u2019s actions came before and after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump. A White House official\u00a0told\u00a0reporters that week that \u201cPresident Trump has clearly stated that he does not support Israel annexing the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump then reiterated this position in his own words. \u201cI am against annexation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have enough things to think about now. We don\u2019t need to be dealing with the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the Times of Israel\u00a0notes\u00a0that \u201cNeither Trump nor the White House statement directly condemned or even addressed the measures approved by Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

With such hostility in Washington, Israel will settle for what they can get \u2014 subtly increasing their administration of Judea and Samaria through land registration, public services, and the maintenance of historic sites.<\/p>\n

Not only do these small changes obliterate anti-Israeli apartheid, they also number among \u201cthe most significant decisions made by the State of Israel since its return to Judea and Samaria 58 years ago,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0the Yesha Council of settlement municipal authorities. \u201cThe government of Israel announced today, in practice, that the Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel,\u201d \u201crectified an injustice of many years, and are entrenching Israeli sovereignty on the ground, de facto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published at The Washington Stand.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joshua Arnold, Op-ed contributor Thursday, February 19, 2026The Israeli flag made from steel placed at Matan Lookout overlooking the hills of Samaria also known as Nablus Mountains located on the Gidonim ridge (a hilltop on which several Jewish settlements are located), above the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank. | Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1843,6315,168,3282,1733,6314,3283],"class_list":{"0":"post-19417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-antisemitic","9":"tag-apartheid","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-judea","12":"tag-law","13":"tag-repeals","14":"tag-samaria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}