Rebelling against PM, MKs pass preliminary reading of West Bank settlements annexation bill

By Sam Sokol 22 October 2025, 3:57 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

A session at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem on October 22, 2025 (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

In an embarrassment to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right-wing lawmakers have voted to pass, in its preliminary reading, a bill that would apply Israeli sovereignty to West Bank settlements, despite opposition, from Netanyahu and his Likud party.

All but one Likud MK boycotted the vote. MK Yuli Edelstein broke ranks to vote in favor, casting a decisive vote and helping the bill scrape by 25-24.

The passage of the bill comes as US Vice President JD Vance is in Israel, and could potentially lead to a crisis with the Trump administration, which has opposed annexation.

The bill still must pass three additional readings to become law. It will now go to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further deliberations.

Sponsored by far-right MK Avi Maoz of the one-man Noam party, the legislation states that “the State of Israel will apply its laws and sovereignty to the settlement areas in Judea and Samaria, in order to establish the status of these areas as an inseparable part of the sovereign State of Israel.”

In a statement accompanying the bill, Maoz said: “The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the people of Israel the Land of Israel. Settlement in the Land of Israel is the redemption and national revival, settlement is what makes the Land of Israel flourish after two thousand years of exile. In applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, we are making a correction that is long overdue. Since the government has been procrastinating, our job as members of Knesset is to do this.”

The bill was supported by the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties as well as United Torah Judaism’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction.

A more limited annexation bill sponsored by Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman of the opposition also passed 32-9 in a preliminary reading. Liberman’s bill calls for applying sovereignty to the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.