Naftali Bennett
Naftali BennettFlash 90

Despite considerable pressure being brought to bear on Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett not to present the proposed Normalization (Regulatory) Law on Sunday, Bennett insisted that he intends to bring the law to the cabinet's legislative committee on Sunday.

Education Minister Bennett met with the prime minister Thursday morning together with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman as well as their legal advisors.

At the meeting, the Attorney-General, Avihai Mandelblit, said that if the Normalization Law is approved in the legislative committee Sunday, the state's request to postpone the evacuation of Amona would be rejected.

Bennett was unfazed and said he would present the law to the committee. Officials present at the meeting stated that it was agreed that the matter would be discussed at the meeting of coalition faction heads on Sunday.

During the course of the Jewish Home faction meeting on Monday, Bennett had announced that the Normalization Law would be brought to the legislative committee for discussion next Sunday.

"It is time to grant the hundreds of thousands of residents of Judea and Samaria a normal life." Bennett said.

"I expect all members of the government to support this move. These are normal Israeli citizens, who pay taxes,serve in the army, and fulfill all of their obligations to society. And they are discriminated against just because of where they live. This law will (restore) order in addition to normalization. We have a right-wing government (for the purpose of) doing this, so we're going to do it."

According to the new softer version of the law submitted by MK Betzalel Smotrich, MK Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli (Jewish Home) and Yoav Kish and David Bitan(Likud), the law will only apply to communities established with state approval but not to outposts established without state approval. The new proposal places a special emphasis on the residents' innocence, as they were not allowed to see the registration papers regarding Judea and Samaria and were unaware that their homes were on privately owned land.

Attorney-General Mandelblit expressed his opposition to the proposed law and said he could not defend it in the High Court if a petition was served against it.

The state last week requested a postponement of seven months regarding the directive to evacuate Amona. The state said that it wished to investigate different options for the residents, including transferring buildings to "Northern Amona" or east of the village of Shvut Rahel some 10 km further north.

The state added that it wished to evacuate residents peacefully and in a way that would prevent friction. The Attorney-General emphasized that if the court rejected the request, the state would be prepared to perform the evacuation by the time required by the court's ruling.