Recently, a senior Palestinian Authority official fell to his death from the third floor window of a Palestinian Authority (PA) Military Intelligence building in Ramallah. Mansour Oussama Hussein was in custody to face charges of treason for taking part in land transactions to Israelis. Palestinian Authority officials assert he committed suicide, a claim his family disputes. While the circumstances surrounding Mr. Hussein’s death are unclear, Palestinian Authority law is unequivocal. The sale of land by Palestinians to Israelis, whether in Israel or the West Bank, is an offence punishable by death. Indeed, this past April, the PA sentenced Muhammad Shahala, a former intelligence official, to death for the crime of selling property to Jews. Shahala was reportedly tortured into confessing, after several Jewish families moved into a house across from the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. An urgent international appeal on Shahala’s behalf was issued by leaders of the Jewish community in Hebron who, in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stated: “It is incumbent on the entire international community, which views Mahmood Abbas and the PA as a viable Middle East peace partner to publicly reject such acts of legal murder, when the crime is nothing more than property sales. What would be the reaction to a law in the US, England, France or Switzerland, forbidding property sales to Jews”?

In describing the crime of selling land to Jews, a law enacted by the Palestinian Authority, the Associated Press and The Canadian Press reported that “Palestinian society views such acts as treason because it weakens their quest for an independent state”.  Really? How does the sale of real estate by a Palestinian inside Israel proper compromise the quest for an independent Palestinian state? And how do Jewish settlements, which comprise less than 2% of the entire territory of the West Bank compromise a future Palestinian state?