The West Bank outpost champion
By advancing the regularization bill for legalizing West Bank outposts, HaBayit HaYehudi Chair Naftali Bennett shows the settlers that he is fighting for their cause.
Chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi Naftali Bennett may have scored a victory over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on the evening of Nov. 13, when the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved the regularization law proposal — but it was just a tactical win.
Bennett did boast after the voting was over that it was “a historic move of regulating settlements in the West Bank,” but he also knows that the new law will never stand the test of a Supreme Court appeal. State Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit warned the committee members yet again that he could not defend the law before the Supreme Court, not least because it violates international law.
Knesset members from HaBayit HaYehudi and the Likud formulated the regularization law. It is intended to prevent the evacuation of homes in the Amona West Bank outpost, which was established on privately owned Palestinian land, even though the Supreme Court ruled that the settlement must be evacuated by Dec. 25. It is also intended to prevent future rulings regarding places in which the settlers built homes on privately owned Palestinian land.
According to the proposed law, in cases of unauthorized outposts the state will expropriate the Palestinian landowners’ rights to use their own land. The law will cover settlements where the state was involved in their creation, and absolve their residents of the charge of illegal settlement. Palestinian landowners who are able to prove ownership will receive financial compensation.
