Bennett conditions support for budget on West Bank referendum

Jewish Home leader Economics Minister Naftali Bennett said Monday his party would only support the 2013-14 state budget if the government advanced legislation making it mandatory to hold a national referendum on the handing over of Israeli-controlled territory as part of an accord with the Palestinians.

“Holding a referendum is the only way to prevent cleaving Israeli society in two, which is the Jewish Home’s main priority,” Bennett said at the start of a faction meeting at the Knesset. “The Jewish Home faction will insist on its implementation.”

“This [potential peace deal with the Palestinians] will have an effect on our security situation and that of our grandchildren, and on the solidarity of the nation… and on our ideological make-up. Above all, this land was given to us thousands of years ago. It doesn’t make sense that a political exercise should determine its future. Only the nation.”

The support of the Jewish Home’s 12 MKs is critical for the passage of the budget.

Netanyahu on Monday said that “This decisive issue, which settles fates, should be brought to the popular vote. A diplomatic agreement that doesn’t have the public’s support, doesn’t deserve to be signed.” He said he would advance the bill in the Knesset and put the full weight of the cabinet behind it. “It is proper that each citizens weighs in on such a critical issue,” Netanyahu added.

Meanwhile, other forces from both ends of the political spectrum in the ruling coalition lambasted Netanyahu’s call for a national referendum on any settlement with the Palestinian Authority.

Dovish Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who will head up Israel’s negotiating team, said the idea of putting a peace deal up to a national vote would undermine her role as an elected official. “The public elected us to… make the courageous decisions. The general election is the only real referendum,” she told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

Avigdor Liberman, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and head of the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu party, referred in recent weeks to referendums as a way for “decision makers to run away from responsibility.”

Opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich charged that the demand for a referendum was the government’s way of torpedoing talks with the Palestinians.

On Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that both the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to a “framework” for the resumption of talks. The Palestinians, however, have yet to confirm their participation.

Livni, who is charged with heading the Israeli negotiating team, Netanyahu envoy Yitzhak Molcho, and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat would meet in Washington in the coming days to begin the process for the renewal of negotiations, Kerry said.

In Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said he would push for a national referendum if a deal was struck.

“I don’t think these decisions can be made, if there is a deal, by one government or another, but need to be brought as a national decision,” the prime minister said. “It won’t be easy,” Netanyahu warned, “but we’re going into the negotiations with integrity and honesty.”

In 2010, the Knesset passed a law requiring a national referendum for Israel to relinquish East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, a move decried by some on the left as a roadblock against a peace deal.

Any deal with the Palestinians would involve Israel pulling out of much of the West Bank; unlike the Golan Heights, the Old City and East Jerusalm, also captured in 1967, Israeli law was never extended to the area.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday told the Jordanian newspaper Al-Rai that he, too, plans to bring any agreement with Israel to a national referendum.

A national referendum for any peace settlement with the Palestinian Authority was a condition laid down by the Jewish Home party when it joined the Netanyahu coalition.

Yesh Atid, the largest coalition partner after the ruling Likud-Beytenu faction, has yet to support or reject the referendum idea. After Netanyahu’s announcement on Sunday, the party released a statement that it would make a decision when the issue is actually brought to a vote.

When Livni was a Likud minister in 2000, she and fellow party member Silvan Shalom proposed a referendum similar to the one Netanyahu is now promoting. According to their proposal, in the event that the Knesset passed a framework accord for a final settlement with the Palestinian Authority, a national referendum would be held between 60 and 120 days after the Knesset registered its approval.

Now, however, she has a different view. “When we declare war, we don’t ask the nation,” Livni said on Sunday. “This is how it should also be regarding any political settlement.”

Ron Friedman and Haviv Rettig Gur contributed to this report.