Knesset may require referendum for West Bank settlement
‘I intend to bring forward this bill this week,” said MK Tzvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) who chairs the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFThe settlement of Kfar Eldad as seen from above.(photo credit: GUSH ETZION REGIONAL COUNCIL)
The Knesset may hold an initial vote this week to require a national referendum prior to any evacuation of West Bank settlements.‘I intend to bring forward this bill this week,” said MK Tzvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) who chairs the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.The private members bill was filed with the Knesset in August and can be brought forward at this juncture if Hauser should so choose.If approved, it would still need to pass three readings before becoming law.The proposed legislation would extend the 2014 Knesset basic law that requires a public referendum or approval of 80 parliamentarians for any Israeli withdrawal from territory in Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.Hauser’s bill would make the same step necessary should Israel decide to evacuate any of the 130 West Bank settlements where 450,000 settlers live.US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict had allowed for Israel to eventually annex up to 30% of the West Bank.That annexation was suspended in exchange for Israel’s normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.In the aftermath of the suspension, right-wing legislators such as Hauser, immediately sought to strategize ways to protect Area C of the West Bank where all the settlements are located, including use of a referendum.Trump’s election defeat and the possibility that Israel could be heading to its fourth election, has pushed Hauser to act now on the bill, even in advance of clear coalition support.
“Given the government’s decision to freeze preparations to apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria; the Basic Law Referendum must be urgently amended so that it also applies fully and immediately to the communities of Judea and Samaria,” said Hauser, whose party is part of the government coalition.The coalition has yet to decide if it plans to support the bill, according to the spokesperson for its chairman MK Miki Zohar (Likud). Opposition parties Yisrael Beytenu and Yamina have already stated they would vote in favor of the referendum bill.Hauser noted that the bill was consistent with the core principle of the Trump peace plan, which recognized that the Judea and Samaria communities would be part of the state of Israel.The coalition parties agree with the idea in principle, he said. Even the Blue and White Party’s platform speaks of a referendum with regard to a withdrawal from territory, he said.US President-elect Joe Biden does not support the annexation of West Bank settlements. He was vice-president during the Obama administration when President Obama pressured Netanyahu into observing a 10-month moratorium on settler housing starts from November 2009-September 2010.It is unclear what pressure Biden might bring to bear on Netanyahu with regard to the settlements.The international community and the Palestinians consistently call on Israel to evacuate the settlements and withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.On Sunday, Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud called on Israel to withdraw from all the West Bank settlements as a precondition for negotiations with the Palestinians.“Remove the settlements and then enter into negotiations, that is the only fair play that you can achieve in having no conditions. I would ask my Israeli interlocutors to consider that condition as being essential.”He spoke at the Manama Dialogue 2020, sponsored by the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, held in Bahrain this weekend.Last week the United Nations General Assembly passed a number of resolutions that similarly called on Israel to halt settlement activity and withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.
