Israel's government pushes ahead with bill to expropriate private Palestinian land

An Israeli governmental body approved on Sunday a bill to allow the state expropriate private Palestinian land in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers have erected an outpost.

The bill, which still needs to be voted in the Knesset (parliament), is expected to be brought for a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday.

On Sunday evening, the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs, chaired by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the pro-settler party of the Jewish Home, decided unanimously to proceed with the controversial bill.

The new legislation deals with an unauthorized outpost which settlers have built east of Ramallah.

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that Amona was illegally built on private Palestinian land and must be demolished by December 25, 2016.

But pro-settler lawmakers in the right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been pressing hard to find a legal loophole that will retroactively legalize the outpost.

Under the new bill, the government would be able to expropriate the Palestinian land, so that the settlers won't have to be removed from the site.

Israel's attorney general said in the past that such a law would be unconstitutional.

Amona is the largest among the so-called "illegal outposts," communities built by far-right Israelis without permits from the government. There are about 100 unauthorized outposts and 120 settlements that Israel considered as legal.

Both outposts and settlements are illegal under international law as they were built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War. Endit