Demand that US Recognize A Palestinian State
Palestinians have sharply criticized a new Israeli bill, which aims to legalize thousands of homes built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. Called the Regulation Bill, it passed the Israeli Knesset in a preliminary reading by a vote of 60 to 49. It must pass three more readings before becoming law.
The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry issued a harsh statement that the bill comes “in the context of the Israeli right and extreme right wing tightening its control and imposing its unjust and extremist ideology on the joints of the government in Israel.”
It called on the US to recognize the Palestinian state, and to “translate its positions into practical steps that will save the two-state solution of peace and opportunity.”
It then lists what those US steps should be.
“This would include the immediate cessation of settlement building throughout the US recognizing the State of Palestine, and supporting the draft resolution against settlements in the UN Security Council.”
Palestinian Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi had even harsher words.
“Such a bill constitutes a legal travesty,” she said in a statement. “Israel is persistently and willfully legislating outside the realm of international law in order to legalize its criminal settlement agenda, considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
The bill, which sparked the anger, was originally meant as a way to stave off the impending demolition of the outpost of Amona, near the West Bank community of Ofra, close to Ramallah. The Supreme Court has ruled that the outpost, which houses 40 families, is built on private Palestinian land, and must be dismantled by December 25th.
Israeli officials have been trying to find a solution to Amona for months. One idea is to move the entire outpost to a neighboring hill.
The current Regulation Bill will not apply to Amona. The newer version of the bill says the state would allow Jewish Israelis who live there to use the land, but not to own it. It also applies only to outposts that the government helped establish. Palestinians who can prove ownership of the land would receive compensation.
Criticism of the bill came from within Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition as well as from outside. Benny Begin, a long time Likud parliamentarian and the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin voted against the bill, saying it violates international law.
Legal experts in Israel are divided over the legality of the bill. Alan Baker, a former legal advisor to the Israeli foreign ministry, said the bill is legal.
“International law says that if land has absentee owners, an occupying power can enjoy the land without taking over its ownership – in my opinion this is legal,” Baker told The Media Line. “The land can be administered until the owners return.”
But Dror Etkes, of the dovish organization Kerem Navot, that researches Israeli land policy in the West Bank, and the man who made the original petition to the court against Amona, said international law does not allow the land to be annexed or to be used.
“This is classic Talmudic sophistry – they are confiscating the utility of the land but not the land itself,” he told The Media Line. “Let’s say you have a house, and I come and kick you out. I say “it’s not mine. I’m just going to use it until whenever I want.
Israel’s Attorney General had opposed the original version of the bill, saying that it violated international law, and even Netanyahu had said it would do diplomatic damage.
The bill was proposed by the Jewish Home party, a right-wing party headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has called on Israel to annex Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. Bennet said the Regulation Bill is one step on the road to that annexation.
“This is a historic day in the Knesset, which went from establishing a Palestinian state to Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” Bennett said using the Biblical terms for the West Bank. “Have no doubt: the settlement bill is leading the way to annexation.”