The Israeli parliament gave initial approval Wednesday to a bill to legalize thousands of West Bank settlements, a measure drawing international anger.
The measure, which would apply to an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, requires three more full parliamentary votes to become law.
There have been reports that a behind-the-scenes compromise could see the bill now stall.
The vote in the Knesset, or parliament, was 58-50.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly opposed the bill at first, claiming he fears an international backlash and legal implications, but voted in favor on Wednesday.
The bill has been pushed by hardline members of Netanyahu’s coalition who ‘defied’ his pleas not to move forward, while the country’s attorney general says it will never hold up in court.
The bill would allow an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Israeli settlements in the West Bank built on Palestinian land to be legalized.
US President Barack Obama’s administration says it is “deeply concerned.”
This would represent an unprecedented and troubling step that’s inconsistent with prior Israeli legal opinion and also break longstanding Israeli policy of not building on private Palestinian land,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
The international community considers all Israeli settlements in Israeli-annexed east al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the West Bank to be illegal, whether they are authorized by the government or not. However the world has failed to stop such threat.
Netanyahu’s government is seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history, and key members of his coalition advocate annexing most of the West Bank while openly opposing the idea of a Palestinian state.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who heads the Labor party, said the bill contravened Israeli and
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the hardline Jewish Home party and has been the driving force behind the bill, has made no secret of his position.
Last week after the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States, he called for the end of the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the basis of years of negotiations.
He said “the era of a Palestinian state is over.”
Source: Agencies
