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Israeli parliament to vote on bill legalizing Jewish outposts in West Bank

Xinhua, February 6, 2017 Adjust font size:

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, is expected to vote on Monday night on a controversial bill to legalize all Jewish outposts in the West Bank, officials said.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told reporters outside a conference in Tel Aviv that the Knesset will hold tonight the final round of votes on the so-called "Regulation Bill."

Under the law, about 3,850 housing units in dozens of outposts built illegally on private Palestinian lands would be retroactively legalized.

The State of Israel would seize the lands, offering compensations or alternative land to the landowners, even if they do not agree to waive their property.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was under heavy pressure from his ultra-nationalist coalition partners to bring the bill to vote following last week's court order demolition of the illegal outpost of Amona.

The evacuation triggered anger among the settlers. These outposts were erected by ultra-right settlers without permits from the Israeli authorities but the governments often have turned a blind eye to their construction.

There are additional 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, where the Palestinians wish to build their future state.

Adalah, an Israel-based Arab legal rights organization, threatened to petition the Supreme Court against the law, should it pass. Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog group, warned that the law would "stain" the Israeli law book and be "another step toward annexation and away from a two-state solution."

The government's general attorney, Avichai Mandelblit, said he would not be able to defend the law in the Supreme Court and warned it might expose Israeli officials to prosecutions in the International Criminal Court.

Miri Regev, Israel's culture minister and a lawmaker with Netanyahu's Likud faction, said that if the law would be canceled by the Supreme Court, the coalition will act to annex the entire West Bank.

"It is time to tell the Supreme Court: you are not the decision makers but us," she told Army Radio. Endit