Thursday 25 / April / 2024
Occupied Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's support for a bill that would legalise Israeli settlement homes on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank is seen in Israel as another feint in a power struggle within his ruling right-wing coalition.
But critics in Israel and abroad who are alarmed by the legislation fear Netanyahu's machinations aimed at appeasing political partners could have grave consequences internationally, even if the law does not survive likely court challenges.
Preliminary approval for the bill granted by parliament on Monday has alarmed the United States, European Union and United Nations, raising the possibility of some sort of UN resolution before President Barack Obama's term is up in January.
Israeli officials are also concerned that the bill could provide grounds for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Netanyahu himself cited possible court action when he initially opposed the legislation promoted by the far-right Jewish Home party and its leader Naftali Bennett. Palestinians condemned the bill as a land grab in territory they seek for a state.
But for the fourth-term prime minister, failure to support the bill would have ceded ground to Bennett in their pursuit of conservative voters that form the power base of both Netanyahu's Likud and Jewish Home.
"Naftali Bennett has scared him more than the US administration and more than the European Union. Even though Netanyahu has been prime minister for 11 years he still remains more a politician than a leader," Amnon Abramovitz, political analyst for Israeli Channel Two, told Reuters.
The bill must pass three more votes in parliament before becoming law, the first of which was expected on Wednesday.
The legislation could ultimately be overturned by Israel's Supreme Court, where human rights groups are widely expected to challenge the effective expropriation of privately-owned land.
Some political commentators in Israel have suggested that Netanyahu could be relying on the court to kill the bill.
Netanyahu has been scrambling to find a way to avoid a confrontation with settlers over the court's order to evacuate Amona, the largest settlement-outpost in the occupied West Bank, by December 25.
Talia Sasson, a former state prosecutor who in 2005 spearheaded an inquiry into outposts commissioned by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, said the bill was "a political stunt" to keep the coalition together.
"The prime minister will come out looking good to his supporters once again -- after all, (it will be seen that) he tried to legalise the theft of lands in the occupied West Bank, and it was the Supreme Court that got in his way," Sasson wrote in Maariv newspaper.
In the five decades since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, it has built about 120 formal settlements on the territory, acts which most of the world deem illegal and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians, who aim to establish a state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.
As well as these settlements, which Israel fully supports, settlers have established more than 100 outposts, many on hilltops across the occupied West Bank, often with tacit government support.
Under the new bill, 55 of these outposts will have official sanction, according to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now. Compensation would be offered to Palestinian land owners.
The deeper the government becomes involved in backing settlement activity the worse it could be for Israel, said Aeyal Gross, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University.
Once the law is on the books, Gross said, it will "add a level of illegality to the existing illegality of the settlements".
Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Israel's action stemmed from a "culture of impunity" in which Israeli leaders believed the international community would not take action against settlement activity.
"We call upon all states of the United Nations, particularly Security Council members, to support a forthcoming resolution on settlements," Erekat said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Additionally, we will provide the International Criminal Court with information about this and other steps taken by the Israeli government," he said.
Far-right parties have been emboldened by the choice of Donald Trump as US president-elect. Shortly after his victory in November, Bennett, who advocates Israeli annexation of part of the occupied West Bank, announced: "The era of the Palestinian state is over."
Trump has pledged to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, a city that Israel regards as its capital -- a claim that has not won international recognition.
Yossi Verter, political analyst at the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, said the power of the settler lobby has grown out of all proportion.
Settlers and their supporters, he wrote, "have this government and the prime minister wrapped around their little fingers".
