Coalition defeats bill calling for West Bank annexation

The coalition defeats a bill brought by the opposition Yisrael Beitenu party calling on the government to annex the West Bank.

Party leader Avigdor Liberman tells the Knesset he brought the bill to challenge the government from the right and to show their hypocrisy.

Many of the parties in the coalition had an election platform calling for annexing all or parts of the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day war. A plan by the previous government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the Jordan Valley was sidelined as part of the normalization deal with the United Arab Emirates.

The bill fell with 66 voting against and only 14 in favor.

“You are a government that just talks,” Liberman says. “Even for Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit lawmakers the [Knesset] seat is more important.”