From Sheikh Jarrah to Spain

The radicals demonstrating against Israel's court system which has justified the ownership of houses in the eats Jerusalem neighborhood of Shimon HaTzaddik (Sheikh Jarrah) could look at this item and learn something:

...It's taken the couple eight years of hard work to construct Villa Burnside. And now they face the very real prospect that in the next few weeks a bulldozer will raze the lot.

They were informed of the planned demolition three days before Christmas in a letter hand-delivered by a Spanish policeman...your villa has to be demolished by April 9".'

...Eight British families living in Albox, a town an hour's drive from Almeria in the south-east of Spain, have been told their properties are to be demolished within the next few months.

It is devastating news. But what is hard to believe is that the legal process by which this decision was reached has been going on for eight years - during which time the homeowners were kept entirely in the dark.

'There has been a failure to control the planning process and now the people at the bottom are being made to suffer.'

No innocents abroad, these expats had ensured their new-build properties ticked all the boxes of Spanish bureaucracy, obtaining building licences and registering deeds at the town hall.

What has only now emerged is that all along, their homes were at the centre of a battle between the local planning authority and the regional government, the latter unhappy with the spread of development into the countryside.

And it is the regional government that has finally come out on top.

It is bad news not only for the 'Albox Eight', for this scandal is about far more than their stories, disturbing as they are. In this area alone, 5,000 villas owned by Britons could now be classed as 'illegally' built.

Elsewhere in Spain, who knows how many of the 600,000 British-owned properties could be at risk?

And, make no mistake, the threats of demolition are not idly made. Two years ago, the authorities ripped down the luxury villa of pensioners Helen and Len Prior for similar reasons. All they could do was watch and weep.

...On Monday, a protest march took place in Almeria. There was, the local Spanish press reported, no violence.

Given the make-up of the marchers, it's not surprising. Few were under pensionable age and they were armed only with walking sticks, wheelchairs and the odd shopping trolley...

Yes, sometimes it's not nice but the law is the law.

In Spain and In Israel.