Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shut down discussion of the so-called “Amona law” on Sunday at the weekly gathering of the ministerial committee, just minutes before the bill was set to be voted on.
The bill, which has been pushed by the Jewish Home and some members of the Likud, would normalize Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria such as Amona, providing compensation in money or alternative land to claimants, shielding the residents from ex post facto claims on the land where their homes were built.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit opposes the legislation, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has called for alternative solutions for the embattled town of Amona, which is slated for demolition by year’s end.
Netanyahu held a meeting with Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), two of the bill’s strongest advocates.
When no agreement could be reached on the handling of the legislation, the Prime Minister raised the issue with the coalition party leaders, a majority of whom gave their backing to his request to push off a vote on the bill by one week.
Last week, Bennett pledged to bring the bill to a vote on Sunday, decrying what he called Netanyahu’s foot-dragging on the matter.
“The head of the [Likud] is pressing on the brakes and telling us not to push the matter,” Bennett said on Thursday, “because ‘we need to solve this [issue] some other way.’”
“We have tried other ways,” continued Bennett, “and unfortunately there was this double foot-dragging [there as well].”
During Sunday’s meeting, Deputy Attorney General Avi Licht warned against formally endorsing the bill, emphasizing the Attorney General’s opposition to the proposal.
Licht said Mandelblit does not believe the Knesset has the authority to pass the Regulation Law, since technically, the army's Civil Administration, not the laws of the State of Israel, rule Judea and Samaria.