Security forces evict a demonstrator from Netiv Ha’avot on Tuesday. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
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Frustrated Israeli right-wing politicians turned to the Knesset on Sunday to push through the legalization of 70 West Bank settler outposts and put a halt to any demolition actions against those hilltop communities.
MK Bezalel Smotrich submitted the bill on the outposts, which he hopes will be presented before the Knesset Ministerial Committee this Sunday before it heads on break on July 18th.
The new bill is designed to support a May 21, 2017 decision to regulate some 70 illegal Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as outposts.
That 2017 decision called for the creation of a team headed by veteran settler leader Pinchas Wallerstein. But a budget for the committee has yet to be allocated. The Prime Minister’s Office only requested the funds less than two weeks ago.
Smotrich’s bill states that government offices and enforcement agencies should treat those communities, built without property authorizations, as if they were already legalized.
It calls for a suspension of any enforcement action against the structures there unless the Prime Minister and or the Defense have ordered them to do so. Such an order would have to be backed up by a cabinet decision, according the bill.
The legislation calls for the communities to receive full municipal services. This includes hookups to electricity and water.
Residents would also be eligible for bank mortgages so they could purchase, build, extend or rebuild their homes.
Last week the Defense Ministry The Defense Ministry’s secretary of settlement affairs, Kobi Eliraz told the Internal Affairs committee that 50 of those outposts could become neighborhoods or extensions of existing settlements.
Another 20, he said, were problematic and would need a government decision to be authorized.
In 2012 the Knesset rejected a bill to legalize the West Bank outposts, but since then the government and the Civil Administration has moved slowly and steadily to pave the way for their authorization.
Netanyahu’s attitude toward the outposts runs counter to the public positions held by former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert who spoke of their removal.
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