The Ministerial Committee for Legislation rejected Sunday a bill that would have placed the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria under Israeli sovereignty. The bill would have removed the threat of "construction freezes" and similar steps from the communities in Judea and Samaria, by taking them out of the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry. 

The bill was sponsored by MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), Chairman of the National Union party. It was co-signed by all the other members of the NU, as well as 22 coalition MKs - including most of the Knesset's Likud faction. However, the Committee's rejection of the bill means that all coalition MKs are expected to vote against it when it comes up for a vote in the plenum Wednesday.
 
The bill was first proposed four years ago by then-MK Rabbi Benny Elon, and was co-signed by numerous Likud MKs - including Binyamin Netanyahu; the Likud was in the Opposition at the time. The bill foundered, but it was re-submitted by MK Katz in the present Knesset and came up for a vote in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation one year ago. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked Ketzaleh to postpone the vote for three months, and Ketzaleh agreed. 
 
Since then, the Committee - which is headed by Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman - has ignored requests by Ketzaleh to discuss the bill again. Minister Benny Begin, who has been the acting head of the committee lately, declared that "an injustice has been done to the NU" and that he would raise the bill for a vote in the committee posthaste.
 
The Committee voted unanimously against the bill. Besides Ne'eman and Begin, the Committee includes Ministers Gideon Saar, Yuli Edelstein, Gilad Erdan, Moshe Cachlon, Michael Eitan, Limor Livnat, Dan Meridor, Yossi Peled, Yisrael Katz, and Yuval Steinitz (all of the Likud), Yitzchak Aharonovich, Sofa Landver, Orit Noked, Stas Misezhnikov, Meshulam Nahari, Daniel Hershkowitz, Yaakov Mergi and Shalom Simchon.
 
Knesset Coalition Chairman MK Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) put pressure on Ketzaleh to withdraw the bill yet again, so as to save Likud embarrassment. However, Ketzaleh refused.
 
"On Wednesday," Ketzaleh said, "the Nation of Israel will have to see with its own eyes who is loyal to the Land of Israel in talk and signatures but turns his back on it when the time comes for action - and who is truly loyal."
 
"It now turns out," he added, "that those who accepted the shameful slogan 'two states for two peoples,' and those who froze the communities of Judea and Samaria and wanted to freeze them a second time, were not acting in earnest when they themselves signed the bill."