Likud’s Begin ousted from top committee for anti-Amona vote
Coalition chairman David Bitan suspends veteran Knesset member for 3 weeks for twice voting against Regulation Bill
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
The chairman of the governing coalition on Tuesday suspended veteran Likud lawmaker Benny Begin from the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee a day after Begin twice voted against a bill that would recognize illegal West Bank settlement outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land.
On Monday, the Knesset plenum approved a new version of the so-called Regulation Bill, a controversial measure castigated by its opponents as an illegal land grab that paves the way for Israel to recognize some 4,000 settler homes but hailed by its supporters as a precursor to some measure of annexation of the West Bank.
In a letter to Begin — the son of late Likud prime minister Menachem Begin — Bitan, also from Likud, wrote that he had decided to suspend the MK for three weeks for his votes in the Knesset plenum.
MK Tzipi Livni of the opposition Zionist Union and a former Likud MK, slammed Bitan for the move.
“The fact that they’re suspending Benny Begin says everything about the Likud of today,” she said. “Netanyahu exploited Begin’s integrity for his own needs during the [March 2015] elections – and now runs roughshod over him and the truth in his decisions.”
Begin, a hawk on Israeli-Palestinian matters who opposed the Oslo Peace Agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, has the reputation of an honest, principled and clean politician.
He returned to politics last year after a period away, running on a slot reserved for a Netanyahu appointee. Begin was forced to resign as minister without portfolio after only 11 days, when Netanyahu brought Gilad Erdan into the cabinet, which pushed the number of Likud ministers over the limit agreed in the coalition agreement.
