MKs give preliminary nod to bill allowing Israelis to directly purchase West Bank land

Lawmakers vote 58-33 in favor of allowing the direct purchase of West Bank land by Israeli citizens during a preliminary reading in the Knesset.

The bill, sponsored by MK Moshe Solomon (Religious Zionism), has the backing of the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus and was written in collaboration with the pro-settlement Regavim group.

It seeks to reverse what its backers have decried as a “discriminatory and racist” legal provision that prevents non-Muslims from buying real estate in the West Bank — left over from the period when Jordan controlled the area.

Until now, such transactions could only be conducted by specially approved companies granted permission by Israeli military authorities to operate in the West Bank.

The bill’s advancement is “an important step on the path to strengthening settlement and restoring our basic right – the right to purchase land in our homeland,” declares Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, one of the co-chairs of the Land of Israel Caucus, following the vote. “Today, in the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people, there are areas where Jews are discriminated against and cannot purchase land. This is an intolerable, immoral and un-Jewish situation. This law seeks to put an end to this discrimination, to restore to us the basic right to buy land in all parts of the Land of Israel.”

After the bill was approved by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation earlier this week, the Peace Now settlement watchdog organization called it “yet another annexation move initiated by the messianic right.”

“The proposal seeks to allow settlers to purchase land without any oversight throughout the West Bank, effectively making them ‘landlords’ in the West Bank in both symbolic and practical terms,” the dovish group said.