Final votes on outpost bill delayed as opposition seeks changes

The final committee and plenary votes on controversial legislation that would legalize some 4,000 housing units in the West Bank built on privately owned Palestinian land were postponed on Monday, with the opposition seeking seven full days of debates before the votes are held.

The legislation was originally scheduled to pass into law on Monday evening. But faced with hundreds of proposed revisions by the opposition, the special committee created to finalize the legislation was forced to delay its votes on the revisions until Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. Once approved by the committee, the legislation will be brought to the plenary for readings.

The spokesperson for coalition chairman David Bitan confirmed that the plenum votes were also subsequently pushed off until Tuesday, at the very least. The spokesperson told The Times of Israel the second and third readings in the plenum may not take place on Tuesday and could see further delays.

A spokesperson for Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein said the opposition was seeking seven full days of debates before the final votes. The Knesset legal adviser was considering the request.

Jewish Home MK Betzalel Smotrich wrote on Twitter that the marathon debates will likely begin Tuesday, continue overnight, resume on Wednesday afternoon and extend through the night to Thursday. The final votes on the Regulation Bill, he projected, would take place next Monday.

At the very least, the debate before the final vote was expected to take at least 10 hours with over 500 objections having been presented by the opposition.

Condemned by the Barack Obama administration, the European Union, the United Nations and Israel’s attorney general, the so-called Regulation Law is being hailed by the settler movement as a turning point in the 50-year settlement project. Once passed, supporters say, the era of evacuating Jewish settlements will be over, though the measure will not cover the doomed Amona outpost, slated for evacuation by early next month.

The legislation had been taken off the Knesset slate late last year, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly waited for Obama to leave office. On Sunday, he announced it would come back for a vote this week.

The final draft of the bill outlines the procedures for legalizing unauthorized construction on private land and compensating the Palestinian landowners. It also immediately freezes administrative proceedings in 16 West Bank settlements for a period of 12 months. As the text stands, it does not apply to buildings that have received final demolition orders from Israeli courts, effectively excluding the outpost of Amona, which is set to be razed by next Wednesday.

The proposed Regulation Bill stipulates that settlement construction in the West Bank that had been carried out in good faith, without knowledge that the land was privately owned, would be recognized by the government, provided the settlers show some kind of state support in establishing themselves at the site — which in some cases could be as minimal as having access to public infrastructure.

Under the bill, the government will be able to appropriate land for its own use if the owners are not known. If the owners are known, they will be eligible for either yearly damages amounting to 125 percent of the value of leasing the land, a larger financial package valued at 20 years’ worth of leasing the plots, or alternate plots.

A ‘very serious danger’ to Israel

Speaking at the weekly Zionist Union faction meeting Monday, opposition leader Isaac Herzog said the bill poses a “very serious danger” to the State of Israel. “This law creates de facto annexation, contrary to all of Israel’s international obligations. It is due to this law that the UN Security Council adopted its resolution against the settlements,” he said.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who has spoken out publicly against the outpost legalization bill, told his Yisrael Beytenu party that he would support it in its final votes.

But he said you “don’t have to be a genius” to see that the High Court of Justice will torpedo the law. “The chance of it being rejected by the High Court is 100%.”

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has warned that the Regulation Bill breaches both local and international law, and indicated that the High Court was likely to strike it down. Some officials, including Netanyahu himself, have also warned that the law could see Israeli officials brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

First put forward by the Jewish Home party, the original proposal was intended to overturn a High Court of Justice verdict forbidding the expropriation of the privately owned Palestinian land on which Amona sits. The clause that would have circumvented that court ruling, however, was removed from the bill following coalition infighting.

While coalition sources on Sunday said Netanyahu had instructed his chief of staff Yoav Horowitz to explore the possibility of including Amona in the final bill, the special committee created to oversee the legislation was set to finalize the text Tuesday without mention of the outpost.

In a deal struck last month with the government, the outpost residents agreed to move peacefully to an adjacent plot. But the deal was complicated after a Palestinian claimed ownership of the nearby plot, prompting the High Court to stop all work on the site.

The lack of a clear solution has once again raised the possibility of a forced eviction of the Amona settlers and fears that violence could result. The residents of Amona last week renewed their protest against the government and vowed to resist the evacuation after the compromise appeared to fall through.