The Knesset will hold an emergency meeting on the planned evacuation of the
Migron outpost next week.
The meeting will take place next Wednesday,
after MK Danny Danon (Likud) gathered the requisite 25 signatures to call a
plenum discussion during the Knesset recess. MKs from Likud, Shas, Kadima,
United Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and National Union supported Danon’s call
to hold a meeting titled “the national camp in the Knesset will not allow Migron
to be evacuated – we will regularize the land through legislation.”
“The
High Court is trying to prevent the government from doing its job,” Danon said
on Wednesday. “We will stop Jews from being removed from their homes and we will
not accept another ruling like the evacuation of Beit Hamachpela [in
Hebron].”
In addition, the Likud MK called for Defense Minister Ehud
Barak to be replaced by someone from the “nationalist camp.”
Danon
accused Barak of behaving as though he can remove settlements on a whim, adding
that the Knesset has the power “to change, once and for all, the High Court’s
one-sided approach to Judea and Samaria” by passing a law on the
issue.
Danon hopes the meeting will promote the so-called Migron Bill,
proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi).
The legislation states
that outpost homes built on land classified by the state as private Palestinian
property may not be demolished if they have been in place for more than four
years and if at least 20 families live in the community. It also proposed
compensating the Palestinian landowners instead of evacuating
homes.
Migron fits all the above criteria.
It is built on land
classified by the state as private Palestinian property with NIS 4.3 million
from the Construction and Housing Ministry.
The Ministerial Committee for
Legislation rejected the bill in December because it believed that it would harm
ongoing negotiations between the Migron residents and Minister-
without-Portfolio Bennie Begin. The residents were working on an agreement
through which the outpost would be voluntarily relocated to state land two
kilometers away near the Psagot winery.
Last month, however, the High
Court of Justice rejected the agreement’s timeline and insisted that the outpost
of 50 families in the Binyamin region must be evacuated by August 1, instead of
by November 30, 2015, as the state requested.
In reaction to the court’s
decision, there has been a renewed push to legislate on the issue, by way of
preventing Migron’s August 1 evacuation.
Right-wing legislators have not
been satisfied with the state’s assurances that their relocation offer still
stands and that it is only the timeline which has changed.
They are now
insisting that the outpost remain in its present location and that the wider
issues of homes on private Palestinian property should be addressed through
legislation.
“The ‘Migron Bill’ will fix the injustice created by the
High Court, prevent photographs of Jews being removed from their homes and do
justice with the settlements of Judea and Samaria,” Danon said.
Tovah
Lazaroff contributed to this report.