Draft law on settler homes gets preliminary approval in Israel

PanARMENIAN.Net - A controversial draft law that could lead to the legalisation of nearly 4,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank passed a preliminary vote in Israel's parliament on Monday, December 5, AFP reports.

The bill, which was voted for by 60 deputies to 49 and still has to be adopted in three readings before becoming law, has already attracted strong international criticism.

The draft is the fruit of a compromise between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the bill's main backer, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has called it the start of Israel's eventual annexation of most of the West Bank.

Agreement between the two is likely to assure the draft bill's eventual passage through the Knesset, or parliament.

Bennett, from the religious nationalist Jewish Home party, is among members of Netanyahu's coalition who have made no secret of opposing a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu says he still backs a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who heads the Labour party, denounced the law by equating its adoption with a "national suicide."

The bill has severely tested Netanyahu's coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history. A previous version was given preliminary approval last month.

"With this law, the state of Israel has moved from the path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to the path leading to (Israeli) sovereignty" over most of the West Bank, Bennett told army radio, Reuters says.

The international community considers all settlements in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the West Bank to be illegal, whether they are authorised by the government or not.