Shas to challenge settlement funding in High Court

After some government ministers blasted the cabinet’s decision on Sunday to include outlying West Bank settlements in the new National Priority Areas map, the Shas party announced it would petition the Supreme Court to challenge the legality of the plan.

The National Priorities Areas map designates communities — usually poorer towns and outlying areas — that are to receive extra funding in the form of significant government grants, infrastructure investment, tax breaks and other benefits.

The new map counts 600 towns and regions as priority areas, including 90 over the Green Line. Several outlying West Bank settlements were included, some of them for the first time, due to their security situation, while some poor cities towns closer to the Israel’s economic center found themselves off the list.

Shas Chairman MK Aryeh Deri announced Monday that he had instructed the party’s legal counsel, Nadav Asael, to petition the High Court in the matter.

“The government of Israel once again displayed its obtuseness in the immoral decision to remove the cities of Beitar Illit and Harish from the National Priorities Map and to [instead] insert dozens of isolated settlements,” Deri said.

Beitar Illit and Harish are both fast-growing Haredi towns.

Deri charged Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett with giving priority to the settlers at the expense of the ultra-Orthodox.

Shas wasn’t the only opposition party to seek legal action against the map. MK Zahava Gal-on (Meretz) asked Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to investigate the legality of including on the list settlements that were built illegally.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz, both of the Hatnua party, on Sunday also spoke out against the new map. Peretz said inclusion of the settlements in the National Priority Areas map “contradicts this period of efforts to advance peace.”

The map contains some 20 communities not on the previous map created in 2009, including nine new settlements. Among these are Rehelim and Bruchin, which until recently were considered illegal outposts. Other settlements to newly make the list are Eshkolot and Sansana in the southern Hebron hills, Alon Moreh near Nablus, Maaleh Michmash near Jerusalem and Nofim in central Samaria.

Other new towns include a number of places that took in evacuees from settlements that had been in the Gaza Strip, including Bnei Dekalim, Ganei Tal and Be’er Ganim.

No ministers voted against the map, but four members of the 22-member cabinet abstained: Livni and Peretz and Yesh Atid’s two dovish cabinet members, Science Minister Yaakov Peri and Health Minister Yael German, a former Meretz mayor of Herzliya.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the vote, noting the importance of the inclusion of Jerusalem in the map.

“There is one place that is always ahead of all others — Jerusalem, which is a top priority. Everything we will decide today will apply to Jerusalem,” he said.

Haviv Rettig Gur contributed to this report.