News Analysis: Israel hardens land grab in West Bank with contentious bill

As Israel's parliament initially approved a controversial bill on Monday retroactively legalizing Israeli settlements on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank, it once again becomes clear that the complex issue is far from being resolved.

The latest bill, dubbed the Regulation Law, was developed after Israel's supreme court ruled to evacuate Amona, after the court ruled it was an illegally built settlement.

Its 50 families are set to be evacuated by the end of Dec. 2016 after politically and legally debating the matter for over two years. Amona is considered the largest of approximately 100 similar Jewish outposts in the West Bank.

The bill regulates their status, legalizing what Israel's supreme court has already ruled as illegal. It is not only meant to reverse the ruling on Amona but to prevent future cases.

Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 during the Mideast War. Almost immediately after, it began settling land with Jews.

The international community never recognized the settlements and Israel's policy of populating the West Bank with Israeli Jews is subject to constant international criticism.

In 2013 it was estimated that around 350,000 Israelis lived in over 200 settlements and outposts in the West Bank, according to B'Tselem, a non-governmental organization.

Nevertheless, Israel has never openly annexed the West Bank and has not applied its legislation there. The Israeli coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a right wing one.

One of Netanyahu's main coalition partners is the Jewish home party led by Naftali Bennet and that's the party which initiated the regulation bill.

Bennet's party said it aspires to annex the West Bank and fully apply Israeli law there.

Speaking after the initial vote, Bennet celebrated the vote by saying it opened the way to the annexation of the West Bank and ended any prospects for a Palestinian state. However the bill is highly contentious on various levels.

Israeli critics and Palestinians described the legislation as a land grab which would further distance prospects for a two-state solution to end the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is estimated that the new law, if approved, would effectively annex 55 illegal outposts and approximately 4,000 housing units in settlements and illegal outposts.

According to Professor Abraham Diskin, a political scientist from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the internal political controversy is substantial.

"Settlements are recognized by every Israeli government including left-wing governments," he adds, emphasizing the fact that in the past, Israeli left wing governments were also instrumental in settlement activity.

During the debate, opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, fiercely denounced the law by equating its adoption to a "national suicide."

International scrutiny and criticism regarding Israel's settlement policy has intensified in the recent years of Netanyahu's term as premier.

With a minor exception of a settlement freeze he agreed to at the end of 2009, settlements have grown substantially under his rule.

Netanyahu is not oblivious of his weak international standing, but faces the need to satisfy his right-wing constituents while pacifying the international community.

"Most of the support for the Prime Minister comes from the right, so he must somehow appease his right-wing voters, so his expressions are sometimes ambiguous and sometimes more hawkish than other people," Diskin explains.

Chances of the bill actually becoming a law are slim.

Should it pass the two additional parliament votes needed, it will most likely be brought to the Supreme court and be thrown out by it as unconstitutional.

Israel's attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, said it would be difficult for him to defend the law in the supreme court.

Hours following the vote, U.S. State Deputy Department spokesman Mark Toner slammed the bill.

"Enacting this law would be profoundly damaging to the prospects for a two-state solution," he said.

Diskin believes that in the end the bill will not pass.

Yet, as long as Israelis and Palestinians do not solve their problems, the West Bank will continue to challenge politicians on both sides.

"It will create domestic and political problems in Israel, as well as clashes between the judiciary and the government, etc. and we have to live with such ambiguity," said Diskin. Enditem