Controversial bid to legalize West Bank outposts, deemed indefensible by attorney general, passes preliminary reading 58-50 after gaining full coalition support in last-minute deal
BY RAOUL WOOTLIFF AND MARISSA NEWMAN, TOI
Israeli children play outside their home in the wildcat Amona settlement, West Bank, on September 7, 2016.
In a heated plenary session Wednesday afternoon, the Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a controversial bill legalizing West Bank outposts, with the coalition mustering full support of all its parties thanks to a last-minute deal, despite initial opposition to the move. Opposition legislators said the bill would legalize “daylight robbery” of private Palestinian land.
The so-called Regulation Bill, designed to avert to the court-ordered demolition of the West Bank outpost of Amona by December 25, passed by 58-50 days after it won the backing of coalition ministers, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay the vote and repeated statements from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit that the legislation runs contrary to international law and would be indefensible in the High Court of Justice.
Minutes before the vote, Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon agreed to support the bill after a meeting with Netanyahu. “We will not support any attack on the High Court at any stage of the legislation. As long as that is clear, the Kulanu faction will support it. We will support it today,” he said.
While the ministers supported the proposal, they stopped short of making it an official government bill, with the Knesset voting on three separate private members bills proposed by several different MKs.
In one vote, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, one of the bill’s staunchest backers, accidentally voted against, though the measure still sailed through.
In a heated plenary session Wednesday afternoon, the Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a controversial bill legalizing West Bank outposts, with the coalition mustering full support of all its parties thanks to a last-minute deal, despite initial opposition to the move. Opposition legislators said the bill would legalize “daylight robbery” of private Palestinian land.
The so-called Regulation Bill, designed to avert to the court-ordered demolition of the West Bank outpost of Amona by December 25, passed by 58-50 days after it won the backing of coalition ministers, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay the vote and repeated statements from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit that the legislation runs contrary to international law and would be indefensible in the High Court of Justice.
Minutes before the vote, Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon agreed to support the bill after a meeting with Netanyahu. “We will not support any attack on the High Court at any stage of the legislation. As long as that is clear, the Kulanu faction will support it. We will support it today,” he said.
While the ministers supported the proposal, they stopped short of making it an official government bill, with the Knesset voting on three separate private members bills proposed by several different MKs.
In one vote, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, one of the bill’s staunchest backers, accidentally voted against, though the measure still sailed through.
Before the vote MKs Yoav Kisch (Likud), Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Jewish Home) and Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) presented their arguments for the bills, with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked closing the defense with an attack on left-wing “hypocrisy.”
From the opposition, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog said that the bill constituted “daylight robbery.”
“It takes private lands, entirely contravening international law,” he added.
After the vote, Zionist Union’s Tzipi Livni slammed Kahlon’s defense of the legislation, saying she had “never heard such a ridiculous excuse.”
“This law already causes huge damage, not just to the High Court but also to the pillars of Israeli democracy,” she said. “It mocks the court’s ruling, the rule of law, the attorney general, international law and basic morals.”
Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid said that the bill would not become Israeli law and was nothing but a political move to appease the settler community but offered no real solution.
“They are taking them for a ride,” he said in a statement after the voted directed towards Israeli’s living in West Bank settlements. “Once again they are giving them false hope, once again they are telling them that it will be OK and once again they [the settlers] will realize that they are running circles around them just in order to get headline.”
The legislation will now be sent to either the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee or the Constitution, Justice, and Law Committee to be revised ahead of its first reading. To become law, the proposals will need to pass three readings in the Knesset plenum. The process is expected to be expedited due to the looming evacuation order of the Amona outpost.
The High Court of Justice on Monday rejected a request by the government to postpone Amona’s demolition and evacuation.
Netanyahu on Sunday voiced opposition to pushing the measure through before the High Court had its say. However, he stopped short of using his veto when it came for a vote before the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also said Sunday he opposes the measure on the grounds that it would harm the rest of the settlement enterprise. However, he and his party voted for the measure with the rest of the coalition.
The Amona outpost, founded in 1995 on a hill near Ramallah in the central West Bank, is home to about 40 families. It is the largest of about 100 unauthorized outposts — built without permission but generally tolerated by the government — that dot the West Bank.
A partial evacuation a decade ago sparked violent clashes between residents and security forces and it is feared a new evacuation could trigger another showdown.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
Thank you. Small world.
FYI, if you click on “Reply to this comment” then when somebody clicks on the “@name of person” highlighted in red, then the cursor will jump to the comment being replied to. Unfortunately, this only works the first time, not in edits.
I’m not sure what Bibi’s game is exactly. Years ago, he repudiated the “Two State Solution” for all of the right reasons. Later, he began playing this one step forward, two steps backwards game. He praised Obama this year for all of the military assistance, and kept mum about Obama’s refusal to deliver hellfire missile replacements during the Gaza war. Meanwhile, the IDF has been retooling, so as not to be dependant. Caroline Glick has written about what a dud the F-35 is. He clearly is trying to prevent a rupture of relations between the U.S. and Israel but I’m not really sure where he stands now on the long run.
I looked up Tabu land:
http://property.co.il/legal-aspects-of-property-ownership-in-israel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapu_(Ottoman_law)
https://apps.cndls.georgetown.edu/projects/palestinian-culture-and-society/items/show/1
https://lawinisrael.wordpress.com/tag/tabu/
http://www.justice.gov.il/En/Units/LandRegistration/Pages/default.aspx
On an amusingly irrelevant note, it’s also a line of cosmetics:
http://www.fragrancenet.com/search/tabu?gclid=CjwKEAiApLDBBRC8oICb9NvKsg0SJAD9yOHsaXUGWnc8unnUAgCrOYtXnKuvOmsf0lo_0KUwOIQ_kBoCFALw_wcB&mv_pc=gawus_c_tabu_1529_gs_tabu_perfume_e
In the end, the only law the international community (so-called) takes seriously is Coles Law: https://youtu.be/sXgl8–FOxA
https://youtu.be/On7U-x_s_EE
.Bananas – A raid on the town for food
Enter Nero
“According to a well-known expression, Rome’s emperor at the time, the decadent and unpopular Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned.” The expression has a double meaning: Not only did Nero play music while his people suffered, but he was an ineffectual leader in a time of crisis.Nov 20, 2012
Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned? – Ask History
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned”
This is a REPLY to Sebastian Zorn’s comment.
Superb data and excellent research.
I lived for some years in the City of New London, Ohio that is. Remarkably also there there was a case involving the Federal and Ohio’s governments deciding to transfer, using the same legal basis as in the other New London, a sizable piece of farmland from two brothers to the said government to be used to build a water reservoir. The brothers refused and somehow found an unhappy end…
The land indeed went over to the state.
The problem, huge problem here, in Israel, is not legality or reach.
Netanyahu simply does not want to protect Jewish rights or National interests. Plain and simple so. The courtiers gave the government TWO years to formulate a plan and Netanyahu intentionally stalled all efforts.
Point of reference…
The vast majority of the kibbutzim took and were waived into privately owned, at least as registered in the Turkish TABU, land.
No one ever, as of now that is… challenged that, the time may come to do so.
@ Edgar G.:
This is From selected articles on the Israpundit main page:
“The Status of Palestine/Land of Israel and its Settlement under Public International Law”
http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/issue1/einhorn-1.htm
@ Edgar G.:
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Sebastien, Yes of course…but I want to know if there’s a reason hidden away somewhere that prevents the Jewish Government, and the State, from taking control of the Land of Israel as originally intended, and stated in those Laws. The Chief Justice I forget his name who caused all the trouble by deciding that it was belligerent occupation, is obviously wrong, and it can easily be proven so.
It surely couldn’t be that the Jewish State is run by those with such modest goals, that they are eager to give away our hard fought over Land to barbaric terrorists just to placate them…who can’t be placated by anything except dead Jews.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
I don’t know but here’s an interesting Supreme Court ruling in the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
“Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)[1] was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible “public use” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The case arose in the context of condemnation by the city of New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real property, so that it could be used as part of a “comprehensive redevelopment plan.” However, the private developer was unable to obtain financing and abandoned the redevelopment project, leaving the land as an undeveloped empty lot.[2]”
and
“Potsdam Agreement: XIII. Orderly Transfers of German Populations
“The Conference reached the following agreement on the removal of Germans from
Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary:—
The three Governments (The United States, Great Britain and Soviet Union), having
considered the question in all its aspects, recognize
that the transfer to Germany of German populations or elements thereof, remaining
in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that
any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.”
* Potsdam Agreement 1945
The conclusions of the Potsdam Conference were confirmed by its signatory states
in 1996.
* President Decrees 2.a
No Czechoslovak (Czech) legal norm (decree, law, etc.) ever existed that would
have dealt with the displacement of the German population.
* President Decrees 2.a
Decrees 5, 12, 33, 108/1945 concerned the expropriation of wartime traitors and collaborators accused of treason but also all Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship from people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin who were treated collectively as collaborators (these provisions were cancelled for the Hungarians in 1948). This was then used to confiscate their property and expel around 90% of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia. These people were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis (through the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), the political party led by Konrad Henlein) and the Third Reich’s annexation of the Czech borderland in 1938. Decrees 33/1945 and 108/1945 explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists. Typically it was up to the decision of local municipalities. 160,000-250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists, but mostly people crucial for the industry remained in Czechoslovakia.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czechoslovakia
@ Edgar G.:
What’s there to research? You just said it all. The documentation is all on the web. I have posted it here. When they talk about international law, it’s just lying, Orwellian double-talk.
I forgot so much and now this is also gone from my memory.
How many kibbutzim and government institutions are built over privately owned lands?
My memory fail me…
Please look it up and tell us.
Don’t we all think that it’s a ong long way past the time thAT iSRAEL SHOULD ABIDE BY iNTERNATIONAL LAW..i DON’T MEAN THE ANTI-jEW “LAWS” PASSED TO HINDER AND SUFFOCATE THE jEWISH STATE, BUT THE real, ORIGINAL iNTERNATIONAL LAWS on to whom Israel belongs.
These laws were passed after the greatest and widest world conflict in history up to then. I mean WW1. and I also mean the 1920 Conference at San Remo, and the Treaty of Sevres, The 1922 League of Nations British Mandate for Palestine.. meant to guide the settlement of Jews all over their exclusively owned land of Palestine, the 1924 Anglo_American Treaty passed unanimously by both Houses Of Congress and ratified by 2 Presidents, the 1945 Founding Document of the United Nations Art.80 and etc.
THESE are the International irrevocable, valid International Laws which the Jewish Government should be deciding it’s actions on, and I do not know whay they don’t ..
Someone knows but is not telling us. Maybe there are flaws, but they can be overcome, because the REAL, CLEAR intent of those Laws were that Palestine, from the Jordan to the Sea was completely owned by the Jewish People.
There are some on this site who love to do research, so why not, guys and gals, dig into it and let us know your findings. Me..I hate research, stemming from my university days.
When Mandelblit talks about it being “unconstitutional” which constitution is he meaning, because my understanding is that Israel’s Constitution is conspicuous by it’s absence. Maybe one has been formulated and passed into Law whilst I’ve been abroad…… Maybe we are using the American Constitution.
Whichever it is (I believe that it uses antiquated Turkish practices) sudden production of “owners” 20 years after Amona was built, from where they have been locally living, by Anti-Jew groups, shouldn’t mean as Beinisch ruled- that every piece of land claimed by Arabs, no matter how amorphous, is Arab land…..NO, not by chicanery of this sort. Nor should we follow the mistaken declarations of IDF generals in the flush of victory.