TEL AVIV – The occupying regime of
Israel’s parliament started voting overnight on reviving a law which gives settlers in the occupied West Bank access to civilian law, while their Palestinian neighbors face military courts.
The session marks the first legislative move since hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office last month, at the helm of the most extremist cabinet in Israeli history.
The legislation, which has been repeatedly renewed since the Zionist regime seized the Palestinian territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, hit a stumbling block in June, contributing to the previous regime’s collapse.
Some members of the then coalition opted to vote against the law, which grants some 475,000 West Bank settlers the same rights as citizens living in Occupied Palestine.
The opposition then led by Netanyahu went against its ideological support of settlements to defeat the legislation, as a way of destabilizing the ruling coalition.
The regime subsequently dissolved parliament, a move which sparked elections while also temporarily renewing the legislation on settlers.
In their first vote on renewing the law for a further five years, 58 lawmakers voted in favor with 13 against.
The text will face a second and third reading in parliament before its final approval.
Some 2.9 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are subjected to Israeli military law.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned what it called the “racist” law, saying it was aimed at the “progressive, creeping and silent annexation of the occupied West Bank.”
Settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law.
Netanyahu’s coalition includes numerous extreme-right ministers who are ardent supporters of settlement expansion and have been handed key powers regarding the West Bank.
To preserve his new cabinet, Netanyahu is making significant concessions to far-right political parties on Palestinian issues, judicial independence and police powers, but also less noticed moves on behalf of another key member of his coalition: parties that represent the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox public.
Members of the occupying regime’s ultra-Orthodox community have long enjoyed benefits unavailable to many other Zionists: exemption from army service
for Torah students, regime stipends for those choosing full-time religious study over work and separate schools that receive state funds even though their curriculums barely teach regime-mandated subjects.
Those benefits have fueled resentment among many Zionists, and their leaders have declared for years that their intention was to draw more of the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredim, into the work force and society.
But the string of promises by Netanyahu in recent weeks as he pulled together the most right-wing and religiously conservative regimeever suggest that Haredi leaders are pushing hard to cement the community’s special status, with broad-ranging implications for Israeli society and the economy.
Netanyahu has promised ultra-Orthodox leaders a new, separate city for Haredim where the Haredi lifestyle would guide planning. He has agreed to increase funding for Haredi seminary students and provide access to jobs without university degrees. And he has pledged a wide range of government handouts for the Haredi school system.
The new coalition regime has also promised an uncompromising approach to the Palestinians, with some senior officials ultimately supporting the annexation by occupying regime of Israel of the occupied West Bank, territory that the Palestinians see as part of a future state for them, as well as an acceleration in settlement construction there.
In one of his first acts as the occupying regime’s minister of Zionist security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir last week visited a volatile Al-Quds holy site sacred to Muslims, defying threats of violent repercussions and eliciting a furious reaction from Arab leaders and international condemnations.