‘Only the beginning’: Outpost bill passes first Knesset reading

Habayit Hayehudi hails historic change: Israelis in Judea and Samaria are now official residents • Joint Arab List MK: Palestinians who sell land to Jews deserve to die • AG applies property dispute law to Judea and Samaria, legalizing dozens of homes.

Yair Altman and Israel Hayom Staff

Habayit Hayehudi: The outpost regulation law should be called the “Beginning Law,” because this is just a beginning | Photo credit: Reuters

The outpost regulation bill, which allows the government to grant permits to contested Judea and Samaria settlements, passed its first Knesset reading on Wednesday evening, with a vote of 58 to 51.

The legislation proposal, introduced by MKs Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), Yoav Kisch (Likud), Shuli Mualem-?Rafaeli? (Habayit Hayehudi), David Bitan (Likud), and Oren Hazan (Likud) will now be sent back to a joint committee on legislation and foreign affairs and defense to be prepared for its second and third parliamentary readings.

Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett welcomed the results of the vote, saying: “A few years ago, I said that a people cannot be an occupier in its own land, and on this historic day, we are enshrining that in law. For the first time, Israeli sovereignty determines that residents of Israel, the half a million residents of Israel who live in Judea and Samaria, aren’t guests, they aren’t occupiers, they are residents.”

Bennett asked, “What are ‘settlers’? It’s a person who comes from one place and moves to another place. Today in Judea and Samaria there is not only one generation, two generations, or three generations — there are already great-grandchildren who have been born in Judea and Samaria and today those great-grandchildren and all of us have decided that they are residents there. This is a very proud day.”

Bennett said the bill could also be called the “Beginning Law,” because it was only the beginning, and that the next step would be to apply Israeli sovereignty to Maaleh Adumim, outside Jerusalem.

“I want to thank Peace Now for constantly sending us ‘mosquitoes’ in the form of one petition after another to the High Court of Justice. Thanks to Peace Now, we aren’t battling mosquitoes, we’re draining the swamp,” Bennett said.

The bill stipulates that if the military authority determines that in the period that preceded the enactment of the outpost regulation bill, settlements were built though an honest mistake or approved by the government on land the military does not have a right to use, the land will be registered as state property if no other ownership has been proven.

In cases in which there exists proof of ownership or rights to use to land, they will be revoked and transferred to the authorities responsible for government property, and the revocation will remain in force until a decision is made about the area’s status.

The bill also decrees that anyone who proves that he or she has the rights to confiscated land will be able to choose between receiving an annual usage fee of 125% of the land’s assessed value; or taking different land in exchange. The land will be assessed by a committee to be established by the justice minister in consultation with the defense minister, and its members will include representatives of the Justice and Finance ministries, along with a representative of the military.

The bill also states that from the day the regulation process begins and until the land allocation process is complete, all enforcement processes and injunctions pertaining to Israeli settlement found to have been built innocently or with government approval, other than those for which court orders or rulings have been issued, will be suspended.

It has been proposed that for the three communities in the codicil to the bill — Ofra, Netiv Haavot, and Eli — all processes and administrative orders, other than those issued by the courts, be suspended for a period of 12 months after the bill is passed. In that time, if the military authority determines that they were built innocently or with state approval, they will be included in the regulation proposed in the bill. The justice minister, with the approval of the Knesset Legislative Committee, will be able to add settlements to the codicil.

The bill was harshly criticized by opposition MKs.

MK Benny Begin (Likud), who opposes the bill, said: “Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and the ministers are looking for a responsible, intelligent, and legal solution. This bill isn’t any of those. If it were, the government wouldn’t be putting so much effort into finding another answer. Thus, I oppose the bill, which I understand to be damaging to Israel, as well as to the settlements.”

MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) said: “In the name of this majority, it is possible to pass a law saying that it is alright to steal. But not to steal in every situation, only if the thieves are Jews and the people being stolen from are Arabs. This is how far we’ve gone. Amona was just an excuse to bring on the big issue, which is applying Israeli law to the West Bank.”

MK Dov Khenin (Joint Arab List) argued: “Look at how much effort, time, and energy this government is devoting to a solution for the housing problem of a small group of settlers in the Amona settlement, which was built on privately owned Palestinian land. If only they would put one-tenth of that time into finding a solution to the enormous housing crisis that exists inside Israel.”

MK Abd al-Hakim Hajj Yahya (Joint Arab List) made a stormy declaration from the Knesset podium on Wednesday that any Palestinian who sold land to Jews deserved to die.

“Anyone selling land belonging to the Palestinian homeland violates Palestinian law. He faces death, and deserves it,” Yahya decreed.

Smotrich responded, “Do you understand why it’s right to confiscate [land]? When there is no free market and anyone who wants to sell is killed, there is no choice. The outpost regulation bill is just an intervention to regulate the market when the market fails.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit made a decision on Wednesday that has ramifications for settlers throughout Judea and Samaria. Mendelblit decided to take on the recommendation of the outpost regulation committee to legalize homes built on privately owned land.

The legal opinion cites Article 5 of the Order on Government Property, which states that a piece of property planned by the relevant authorities — meaning, the Civil Administration — thinking that the land in question belonged to the state but which later turned out to be privately owned, would not be evacuated and the land owners would be compensated.

Dozens of buildings planned with government permission but currently listed as illegal will be affected by the decision. The owners of the buildings will receive the rights to the property and will not have to worry about being evicted or having their homes demolished as a result of a petition by Palestinians or by rights groups on their behalf.

Article 5 stipulates that when an error has taken place in the land purchase, such as the owners or its designated purpose being mistakenly identified, the state will be responsible for compensating the owners of the land, while the property will remain in the hands of the buyer.

This is the first time this clause has been exercised for cases in Judea and Samaria, where the issues of land and ownership are complicated and political.