Is taking control of land by a Jew in Israel a sin if it was not controlled by him before?

Question

According to Halacha, is it a sin for a Jew to take control over some land in Eretz Yisrael when this land was taken against the will of its previous controller (regardless of whether it was occupied or empty, and whether there was violence involved in the transition)? Does this depend on whether the agent responsible for the removal of the previous controller was the State of Israel?

Regarding to the type of sin involved, I am thinking of the act of stealing but it could be another. Here are some commandments regarding stealing that might be relevant for the question (apart from the 8th commandment):

• Not to steal personal property (Lev. 19:11).
• To restore that which one took by robbery (Lev. 5:23).
• Not to covet what belongs to another (Ex. 20:14).
• Not to crave something that belongs to another (Deut. 5:18).
• Not to steal personal property (Lev. 19:11).
• To restore that which one took by robbery (Lev. 5:23).

Source here

My aim is to better understand the consequences for a Jew settler of moving into land taken over from Palestinian settlers by the state of Israel or private individuals.

Disclaimer:

1) Notice that use the concept of control instead of ownership since, apparently, Jews never own the land, which belong to G-d. Please correct if wrong.

2) There is no mischief or anti-semitism behind my enquiry. I just want to understand better the ongoing Israel-palestine conflict.

Answer 1

I will start by addressing the specific question that you have asked here: "According to Halacha, is it a sin for a Jew to take control over some land in Eretz Yisrael when this land was taken against the will of its previous controller (regardless of whether it was occupied or empty, and whether there was violence involved in the transition)?"

The answer to your basic question is, "no, there is no general prohibition against taking Eretz Yisrael by force (i.e. with violence)." War is not something that Judaism views as universally forbidden. Indeed, the conquering of the Land from the Canaanites by force was itself a commandment (Deut. 20:16). Your comparisons to theft are not really analogous: stealing is forbidden; conquering land is not forbidden. Therefore, there is at least one case where it is not a sin to take control of some land in Israel by force.

Of course, the conquering of the Land of Israel from the Seven Nations who were living there was a special case and not necessarily directly relevant to today. You mention that the motivation for your question is understanding the halachic issues regarding Jews nowadays moving into land previously controlled by non-Jews in Israel.

Your suggestion in the question was that perhaps this is a violation of the prohibition against stealing. It turns out that this actually cannot be the case because of a halachic technicality called קרקע אינה נגזלת ("land is not stolen"). This should not be understood as a permission to steal land; rather, it should be understood as a technical description of a scenario. In short, land that is taken from someone against his will is not considered to be "stolen" but rather still in the domain of the original owner. It is not necessary to completely understand this distinction for our discussion here; what is important is that the technical halachic prohibition against stealing cannot apply to land. (If you are interested in learning more about this halachic concept, see the Gemara at Sukkah 30a-b and Bava Kama 117b).

All this tells us, though, is that taking someone's land against his will is not called stealing. That doesn't mean that it is permitted. In fact, Shulchan Arukh 376:1 rules that trespassing is forbidden and compares it to stealing. So the question here is, are Jews living in Judea and Samaria trespassing on the land of non-Jews?

Unfortunately, this is the point in our discussion where the answer depends on whose version of the facts you accept as true. The State of Israel claims that its wars have always been wars of self-defense and any land captured has always been taken for strategic reasons related to national security. Wars of self-defense are permitted according to halacha. If you accept this version of reality, all of the land controlled by the State of Israel was legally captured in a legitimate war and the Arabs who had been living there abandoned their land anyway!

On the other hand, someone who rejects this version of the facts could possibly come to a completely different halachic conclusion. That is part of the reason why there was so much resistance to your question in its original formulation. The original question was a question about the facts on the ground in Israel. We do not answer that kind of question on Mi Yodeya. Here, we can only answer questions where the scenario is well-defined and the question is about Judaism.

Answer 2

Of course it is a sin to steal land in Israel for many reasons and there is no denying that! Anyone who does it is doing the wrong thing and it is not what God wants Jews to do now, as almost all Rabbis teach.

Even though it may not technically be stealing (because it is God-given Jewish land, and we never gave up hope to return to it after being driven out by the Romans [losing hope to reclaim your land doesn't make a difference in Jewish law anyway for the true owner always retains the rights to the land--see Shulchan Aruch CM 373]), being that the Messiah has not come yet, we can not conquer our land by force (through a war lead by the Jewish King [some hold he can be a different form of leader/government], unless it is a war in self-defense) if it is understood by the world as "stealing," because if the world honestly treats something as stealing then Jewish law treats it as stealing; we reflect the world's moral view (if it is actually moral) measure for measure (See R Reuven Margaliyot's Mishpitei Ger Toshav starting from this page where he discusses Jewish law ruling like Gentile law. This can flow from the concept of dina demalchusa dina, or the general Noahide dinim. I view it as a logical midda kenneged midda type of rule as that is how Hashem rules the world, meaning, since it can't be that international laws are more moral than Hashem's Torah will, He wants Jews to follow the derech haaretz under the umbrella of the Torah instruction to "do what is straight and good," which includes doing what is truly ethical in the eyes of both God and man (see Tosefta Shkalim 3:2 quoting Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael) even if not explicitly commanded to do so, and to avoid the chillul Hashem when people judge Jews as being immoral and dishonest for taking land from innocent Palestinians).

Further, although the government may have the halachik power to take land in their jurisdiction and it is not technically stealing (called hefker beth din, dina dimalchuta, or other concepts; yet a government which follows the Torah may be necessary to have these halachik rights, as opposed to a secular government), an individual does not have the right to take the law into his own hands and 'conquer' the land from the inhabitants because that is actually stealing from people who have ownership the land, nor can individuals build in ways that have a detrimental effect on the previous right of passage that the peaceful inhabitants had established before this person moved in.

Anyway, taking of land can put Jews in great danger, so we are forbidden to do it even if you disagree with this understanding of how Jewish law works.

Aside, I don't know where people are getting this idea that you are allowed steal land when it is clearly forbidden as stealing to even trespass on someone's land, let alone take it from them by force, as is written in the Shulchan Aruch CM 376 (i.e. Code of Jewish Law). You can make all the hair-splitting distinctions you want, but that doesn't change the halacha nor the fact that it is forbidden according to all opinions (for one reason or the other).

When the Messiah comes, we hope that the entire world will recognize his stature (or at least those living in Palestine), so that we will not have to wage war to retake our land. Until then, many Rabbis support 'land for peace' initiatives, because we will get all of Israel back in the future anyway. At that time, Palestinians will live in a moral, just, holy, peaceful, and blessed Jewish society (it is assumed we will have a king too as Rambam says throughout that chapter), and they will be honored to be part of the glorious Jewish state.

As far as I know, the peaceful Palestinians at that time will be allowed to live in Israel. It is just that the government of Israel will maintain control of the land. I do not know the details as to who exactly owns that land and what will happen at Jubilee when land returns to its proper owner. It may be that when the lands will be divided by lot, as spelled out in the last chapters of Ezekiel, the moral non-Jews who live in the land will be able to stay in their towns (although the government will have power over the land as it has power over all land according to the halachik details) and therefore they will not ever have to leave at Jubilee because they own it (or because the state owns it, so the state will symbolically return it to the owners every 50 years). It is possible that even Jews will have to be transferred throughout the land to live within their own tribe's borders. I have to do more research on these matters.