Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday instructed coalition chairman MK David Bitan (Likud) to bring the Legalization bill for its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum. The purpose of the bill is to retroactively legalize homes built on private land in the West Bank. The special committee formed to discuss the bill is scheduled to convene on Monday.
In a meeting yesterday between Prime Minister's Bureau chief of staff Yoav Horowitz and residents of Ofra, a Jewish community in the territories, Horowitz told the residents of the prime minister's support going ahead with the Legalization bill, after Jewish Home Party chairman Naftali Bennett decided to put the bill back on the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee's agenda.
The meeting was the second Horowitz held with Ofra residents in an attempt to prevent a violent conflict when the nine homes that the Supreme Court ordered destroyed are evacuated. At the preceding meeting, Horowitz informed the residents that Netanyahu had ordered the expediting of a construction plan for 68 housing units in Ofra to replace the homes to be destroyed.
Hundreds of homes have been built in Jewish communities on private Palestinian land. The bill was originally intended to prevent the evacuation of Amona and nine homes in Ofra. In its current version, however, it does not apply to outposts and homes for which the Supreme Court has issued a confiscation order, since Kulanu chairman and Minister of Finance MK Moshe Kahlon opposed the law's retroactivity in order to avoid encroachment on the judicial branch.
A week ago, Ofra's leaders called for a hunger strike starting tomorrow opposite the Knesset building demanding that the government refrain from destroying homes, a measures scheduled for implementation on February 8. Ofra announced that although the prime minister's declaration on his commitment to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria was welcome, deeds were preferable to words.
The announcement follows the statement by residents of the Amona outpost this week that they were renewing their public struggle to prevent the evacuation, after the alternative of moving the outpost's buildings to a nearby hill did not materialize. Avichai Buaron, who is leading the Amona residents' campaign, stated, "Our only remaining choice is to renew the struggle to prevent the destruction of the Amona community."
He added that the decision had been taken "after much prevarication," and after "the agreement with Amona residents had been violated." Referring to the alternative, Buaron said, "Today, 36 days after the agreement was signed and 14 days before the Amona evacuation date, despite what was written in the agreement, no work on the alternative has yet begun. The politicians have failed to implement this agreement, and did not keep their word."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on January 29, 2017
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