Seeing a lot of references like these in @nytimes and @guardian (and in more indignant forms in tweets) to supposed Israeli law that allows Jews to recover lost property from 1948 but not Arabs. This is a huge misrepresentation of complex legal situation.

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Israel's Custodian for Absentee Property took possession of property in Israel that had been owned by anyone who was in the years 1948-50 residing in enemy states (or land they controlled). Jordan's Custodian of Enemy Property did the same in the West Bank.

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Both Custodians sought to divest themselves of as much abandoned property as quickly as possible. Israel's policies in abandoned property, especially agricultural, were and remain controversial, and form a backdrop to a surprising number of current political disputes.

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In urban settings, both Israel and Jordan were keen to use abandoned property for resettlement of refugees. There were political aspects to this, to be sure, but mostly this was a practical response to the massive waves of refugees both countries absorbed after 1948.

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In most places, this meant that title to abandoned property transferred to new owners. In this manner, much formerly Jewish property in East Jerusalem was transferred by Jordan's custodian to Arabs and much Arab property in West Jerusalem was transferred by Israel to Jews.

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In the 4 properties in Shimon Hatzadik (a formerly Jewish neighborhood next Sheikh Jarrah) which hold the world's attention this week, titles were never transferred to the new residents, and it was still held by the Jordanian Custodian when Jordan lost the territory in 1967.

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Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 war created two potential legal anomalies, one big and one small:

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1) As East Jerusalem was now (according to Israeli law) in Israel, but all its inhabitants had been in enemy territory in 1948-50, the law could conceivably deprive the entire population of its property.

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2) Property that was still under Jordanian guardianship transferred to the Israel Custodian, which meant that the Israeli Custodian was suddenly a guardian for "enemy property" when the "enemy" was Israeli citizens who fled only 19 years before.

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To deal with both, the law was updated in 1970 so that Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem could not be considered absentees, and that property that was still under Jordanian guardianship in 1967 could be restored to the Israelis it was confiscated from.

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This is not to say that evicting Palestinians from Shimon Hatzadik who haven't paid rent is smart (it isn't), or that the police handled the fight over the Damascus Gate steps wisely (they didn't), or that Israel's incoherent designs on East Jerusalem make sense.

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But the description of Israeli law as essentially racist (and the implied expectation that Israel has a unique responsibility unprecedented in warfare to compensate its defeated enemies without a comprehensive peace being concluded first) is wildly inaccurate.

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