Land, Ownership, and Luck

I think I never fully understood why land property was always dealt with differently from other kinds of property. Of course, buying houses and such is always more expensive than buying many other things, but still... to actually have a different set of laws to deal with those things?
I think that, in a way, the latest concerns about Arab and Jewish settlement and demolition plans in Jerusalem make me understand that difference a bit better.
East Jerusalem has been subject to four different legal regimes in the past century. First Ottoman, then British, later Jordanian (in 1948) and lastly Israeli (as a result of the 1967 war). In '48, the Jewish population of East Jerusalem fled to the western side of the city. In '67, the Arab population did the same, fleeing to other Arab cities in the West Bank and neighboring states. While those people could, generally speaking, take most of their belongings with them one thing always stayed behind - real estate. That's the one thing no one can carry with them. So, when everything you own usually goes with you and is subject to the same legal regime you are subject to - that's categorically not the case with the land that you own.
In the specific case of Jerusalem, both Jordan and Israel have laws that nationalize deserted land. When Jews left their land behind in 1948, Jordan nationalized them and gave them to Palestinian new residents. After the 1967 war, when Israel took over East Jerusalem it applied an exactly similar law on the property that was now deserted and, recently, gave back the property nationalized by Jordan to its original Jewish owners.
I'm sure this isn't how real estate law developed, or their historic justification. But this makes it clear to what extent owning land is different from owning other kinds of property. Ownership is a result of legal schemes. Look at the same house through the eyes of one legal system - it belongs to one person. Look at it through the eyes of another - it belongs to someone else. Unlike other movable property, the owner of land has so little control on what's happening to his or her property, cannot protect it, and cannot take it with them. Most of the time, we don't realize it. Most places are subject just to one legal regime - not only at one time but even through (at least recent) history. Only in certain cases, some unfortunate people see behind this veil of state-law connection. Some property has the bad luck of being in those place where one legal system chases another. In those cases remain the same, and so do the houses, but not the links tying them together.