The State of Israel is the only Western state where the majority of lands are still owned by
the State and by a public body related to it (The Jewish National Fund). At the root lies the
divine command stating that the Land of Israel belongs to God and therefore should not be
traded in perpetuity (Leviticus 25). This principle has been applied to almost all of the State
lands and was established in a Basic Law. Since the 1980s there were many pressures in Israel
to privatize at least part of the State's and JNF's lands due to the general privatization
process of Israel's economy the deepening globalization process and the transformation of
Israel to an individualistic society. However only a small portion of the lands were
privatized constituting 4% of the area of Israel. The book is based wholly on primary sources.
It describes and analyzes the history of the ideological social and legal processes that took
place and their development since the beginning of the 20th century until today ? processes
that brought about the unique phenomenon of the State of Israel as an advanced capitalistic
state whose lands are mostly state-owned.
