53 Spring 2023 n The country's small dimensions and dense population; n Democracy, equality and majority-minority issues; n Scarcity of natural resources alongside human resources in the fields of innovation; and n Judicial activism and the criticism of such activism. In the first chapter, “The Fingerprints of History in Land Inventory,” Sandberg shows that the current inventory of private and public land in Israel reflects the “ongoing fingerprint of history.” Starting with Ottoman rule through the British Mandate, continuing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Zionist vision, and the socialist ideology of the founding fathers, this comprehensive set of legislation denotes important changes in Israel's identity. According to Sandberg, while Israel feels a constant need to demonstrate its legal independence by freeing itself from the influence of the legal systems that preceded its establishment, in practice, the mark of legal history is present and influential in the Israeli real estate market of the 21st century and reflected in the daily life of every Israeli. In the second chapter, “Culture, Nation and Socialism in the Administration of Public Lands,” Sandberg contends that the management of the inventory of public land is based on preserving most of Israel's territory – 93 percent – as public land, in which the transfer of ownership is prohibited or restricted under the second constitutional law enacted in Israel, in 1960 – Basic Law: Israel Lands, which stipulates in Article 1 that “the ownership of Israel Lands, which are the real estate belonging to the State, the Development Authority, or the KKL, shall not be transferred by sale or in any other manner.”4 According to Sandberg, the principle of preserving ownership is based on three motives. The first deals with cultural and symbolic aspects – the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the biblical context of “The Land Shall Not Be Sold in Perpetuity.”5 The second, a national motif – fear of an Arab or foreign takeover of the land, makes it difficult to transfer ownership to nonJews. The third motif is economic – socialist, derived from the worldview of the nation’s founders, according to whom joint ownership of the land should be maintained to promote equality and social justice. Sandberg shows that the change in attitudes toward these three aspects, which are essentially identity-related, is reflected in the management of public land – in the way in which the ideological change is reflected in the decline in Israel's adherence to public ownership through the transfer of ownership and land privatization. The third chapter, “Privatization of Public Lands: A Slow Maturation Process,” reveals the long and gradual privatization process of public lands in Israel, which are an expression of a dramatic transition from a socialist government to a market economy. Sandberg shows how legal and administrative frameworks coped with the changing reality and how gradually, informal privatization turned into a formal one. In the last decade, the phenomenon has been widely reflected in the privatization of urban and agricultural land. The fourth chapter, “National Land Planning in a Small Country: Challenges and Innovation,” discusses the combination of the significant entrepreneurial component and density. These components, related to Israel's characteristics, highly affect Israel's land planning policy. Sandberg shows the creativity and innovation required to cope with the land shortage and the abundance of needs, illustrated in the book by two innovative projects of mapping and designing a three-dimensional and multilayered cadastre in Israel,6 as well as regulating marine space. The fifth chapter, “Jewish and Democratic: Land Policy and Arab Minority,” analyzes how land policy relates to the Arab minority. Israel aspires to be both a nation-state of the Jewish people and a state that guarantees full equality to all its citizens. Israeli land laws reflect this duality within reference to the consequences of the Independence War on land ownership – such as the issue of restitution of property of present-absentees,7 as well as in its relation to the land allocation policy – the expropriation issue, questions of separation versus mixed localities (for Arabs in localities with a Jewish majority and vice versa). In both, the discussion of land laws is accompanied by identity dilemmas. One case discussed in the book, in which I was involved as litigator, deals 4. Basic Law: Israel Lands, 5720-1960, SEFER HAHUKIM (Book of Laws) 56 (Hebrew). 5. Yossi Katz, THE LAND SHALL NOT BE SOLD IN PERPETUITY: THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND AND THE HISTORY OF STATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND IN ISRAEL (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). 6. Cadastre is comprehensive official legal recording concerning the location, ownership and other data relating to parcels of land. 7. The term “present-absentees” refers to Arabs who left their homes during the War of Independence and their property was confiscated by virtue of the Absentee Property Law, but they remained within the boundaries of the State of Israel, or returned to it at a later date. These people were absent according to the definition of the law, but were present in the country.
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