Minister Gilad Erdan
Minister Gilad ErdanIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan calls on PM not leave the Levy Committee Report "in the desk drawer."

The Levy Committee was a three-person committee headed by Supreme Court Judge (ret.) Edmund Levy, which established that Judea and Samaria are not "occupied territory" and that Jews have a right to settle there. The report was received with enthusiasm in nationalist circles when it came out last month, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been slow to hold a cabinet discussion of the report.

"After years in which, unfortunately, a question mark hovered over the question of the right of the state of Israel to settle in Judea and Samaria (Yehuda and Shomron), a panel of senior jurists headed by Judge Edmund Levy recently determined that Israelis have a legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria," wrote the minister, "and that establishing communities in these areas is not illegal."

"Let us not leave this report in the desk drawer," Erdan implored. "It is our duty to discuss it and its ramifications and adopt its conclusions, so that it can be a basic guide for state representatives in its various arms."