Likud minister claims Netanyahu backs outpost law despite misgivings

Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev said Thursday that the prime minister has always been in favor of a controversial new law to legalize West Bank settlement outposts, even though in the past he warned of its international consequences and wanted to delay a Knesset vote to approve it until after a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

In an interview with Israeli Radio, Regev asserted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a key element in seeing the so-called Regulation Law being approved by parliament.

“What do you think, that if the prime minister didn’t support the law that it would come about?” she said when asked on Netanyahu’s true feelings about the law. She added that although the law had been pushed by the pro-settlement Jewish Home party it was only because Netanyahu also supported the legislation that it succeeded in becoming law.

The law, which passed with a majority of 60 to 52 on Monday night, allows Israel to compensate Palestinians whose land has been taken over by settlers, instead of removing the outposts.

Several anti-settlement groups have petitioned the High Court of Justice against the new law.

Regev said that if the law is struck down by the High Court then she will push to have Israeli law extended to all of the West Bank, a move seen as tantamount to annexation. Such a move would be accompanied by what she called “a thorough discussion about the status of the land and the people living there” — a reference to the Palestinians who want the West Bank for a future state.

In November 2016, Netanyahu reportedly warned members of the security cabinet that if applied, the Regulation Law could lead to an International Criminal Court investigation against Israel. Even as late as Sunday, Netanyahu was said to be urging the vote be put off until he had met with Trump next week.

Netanyahu did not vote on the bill as he was on an official visit to London during its approval by the Knesset.

Speaking to reporters from London, Netanyahu said at the time he had informed the US about the upcoming vote on the law because that was simply what friends do.

“I never said I want to push it off,” he said from the UK Foreign Office, where he later met with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. “I act according to the national interests. In my view, you don’t surprise friends. Friends don’t surprise each other. Friends update each other. That’s what I did.”

Netanyahu stressed that he did not ask the Americans for permission to pass the legislation — which has been roundly condemned and is expected to be struck down by Israel’s High Court — but merely informed them of his intention to pass the bill through a second and third reading.

The passage of the law was accompanied by a flurry of condemnations from the opposition, Palestinians and human rights groups, and the international community.