Kahlon to back embattled outpost bill, staving off coalition crisis

Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon on Wednesday agreed to support the controversial bill that seeks to legalize West Bank outposts, giving it likely majority support in an initial reading in the Knesset.

The bill will go up for a preliminary vote in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday afternoon, earlier than expected, after the opposition cleared its bills off the docket to give the coalition less time to muster the votes it needed.

Kahlon, who leads the 10 MK-strong Kulanu party, had said on Tuesday, “If it turns out that it will be damaging to the High Court we won’t support it. The law will never happen.”

Kahlon met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday before announcing the about-face. But he still said he would not allow lawmakers to attack the High Court of Justice.

“We will not support any attack on the Supreme 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.

The preliminary reading of the so-called Regulation Bill comes days after it won the backing of coalition ministers over Netanyahu’s opposition.

The measure is being rushed through the Knesset in order to save the Amona outpost, which was built on private Palestinian land and faces a court-ordered demolition by December 25, but will also allow the state to retroactively recognize other unauthorized outposts.

The measure, which has been introduced in at least two different versions, is opposed by other coalition parties as well as the attorney general, who said both an original bill and a softened version run contrary to international law and would be indefensible in court.

But on Wednesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party, ordered all his party MKs to refrain from holding negotiations with members of other coalition parties, and demanded that all of them participate in the vote, expected later in the day.

MK Shuli Moalem-Rafaeli (Jewish Home), who sponsored one iteration of the bill, even threatened to cause a coalition crisis, claiming that “the smell of elections is in the air.”

Moalem-Rafaeli told Hebrew media that if the law does not pass, her party members would no longer view themselves as obligated to vote along with the coalition — a scenario that could bring down the government and spur new elections.

“All coalition parties are committed to decisions made by the ministerial committee, and if some parties choose not to do so we will be freed of any other obligation to the coalition,” she told Walla News.

Sources in the coalition said that it was “interesting that something that the prime minister couldn’t do in an entire year is suddenly being done successfully in three days,” referring to attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare the land around Amona as “absentee property” and replicate the outpost on a hilltop nearby.

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 will harm the rest of the settlement enterprise.

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.