Knesset to hold emergency meeting on Migron

Danon: Law must be passed to stop High Court from dismantling outposts, Ehud Barak must be replaced with a nationalist.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Migron Outpost 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Migron Outpost 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
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.