Hotovely’s bill: Promoting the right of Jews to live in Israel

Likud Knesset member Tzipi Hotovely is calling on Americans to be vocal in their support of her bill and to write letters to her and other MKs as well as members of the United States Congress voicing this support. “Tell the Knesset not to bury the report,” she wrote in an email.

Hotovely plans to submit a bill to the Knesset based on a report from a commission headed by retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy. Levy is known for his minority opinion against evicting the Israelis from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu appointed a three-member committee in January 2012 to determine the legal status of towns in Judea and Samaria. The panel, headed by Levy, also included former Foreign Ministry legal adviser and ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, and former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court Tchia Shapira. Baker clarified the conclusions of the 89-page report published by the Israeli government July 2012, entitled, in Hebrew, “Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria” in a letter to the Israel Policy Forum. He stressed that it reaffirms, “the legal and historic rights and claims of Israel with regard to the area and the nature of Israel’s presence therein” and that it “is no different from Israel’s policy statements over the years.” It also noted “Israel’s well-based and solid legal and historical claims to sovereignty over the area and the right of Israelis to settle therein in accordance with the requisite legal norms and requirements, as set out in the body of the report.”

Baker further emphasized that, “the main body of the Levy Report deals with practical ways of resolving the outstanding issues concerning planning, zoning and building in the area, in light of the confusing situation in this field that has developed over the last few years. The report proffers recommendations for adjudicating land-ownership disputes between Palestinian and Israeli claimants – all with a view to ensuring just, proper and fair administration.”

Hotovely said (via email) that her bill “will create an Israeli land registry in Yehuda and Shomron, create a legal tribunal that will deal specifically with property rights, apply full Israeli building laws” not requiring the permission of the Defense minister and thus “allow for more building” and “defense of Jewish legal and property rights.” She said that this is “another step toward full Israeli sovereignty over Yehuda and Shomron (full Israeli law), (will) make building easier, and encourage settlement.”

She noted that the report clearly states that “’from the perspective of international law, establishing communities in Judea and Samaria is not illegal’….The People of Israel are not occupiers in the Land of Israel—in Judea and Samaria as in Tel Aviv and in all parts of Jerusalem.”

She said that passage of the bill depends mostly on the Prime Minister, but that even if it is not passed, it has “important declarative and policy value.” The report is important, she said, “to establish that Judea and Samaria are not occupied or stolen territory. Under the current situation, it is very difficult to build and expand Jewish communities. Judea and Samaria are under legal limbo, a twilight zone, and the status quo is damaging to Israel.”

In spite of the usual complaints from the Left, Hotovely cites strong support from centrist and right wing American Jews and noted that, to date, 18 Members of Knesset have signed the legislation. “The report didn’t change the minds of anybody already convinced that Judea and Samaria are occupied territory,” Hotovely stressed. “However, for those who were unsure of the Left’s claims, they were provided with a new legal outlook.”

“These ideas should have been said by the right wing leadership long ago,” pointed out Dr. Raphaella Segal, Assistant Mayor of Kedumim, Shomron, Israel. “The bill to annex Yehuda and Shomron under Israeli Authority should have been done long ago. If it would have been done close to the Six Day War it would have passed and also the condemnation of the world would have been minor.” She emphasized that people got accustomed to the ideas of Oslo, of giving away Israeli territory in Judea and Samaria, and that the right wing factions should have constantly called for annexation of the area. She noted that they focused on security regarding the threat of Arabs in the area rather than debunking the false Arab claims of land ownership, (there never was an Arab state in that area) when Jews have a historic and legal right to live in the land. If the right had vocalized the legal claim of Israel to Judea and Samaria over the years, “it would have saved all the troubles we went through by the world and the left in the past few years.” She said that more people in Israel are looking for alternatives to Oslo since it is apparent that the Arabs are not willing to negotiate, citing plans by Naftali Bennett and Benny Elon. “Therefore,” concluded Segal, “it is very correct that Tzipi Hotovely is bringing her bill, even though, for now, it probably will not pass, we should start to speak about it and not only as a bill but in interviews, in articles, etc. We have to start the change in different ways. The bill is one of them.”

“If it’s passed, then Judea and Samaria will be open to development, people can live and move there freely, and realize the biblical promise that this is Jewish land for the Jewish people,” said Helen Freedman, Executive Director of Americans for a Safe Israel. “Nothing can succeed as long as we are violating the biblical promise. I hope it will (pass), I have my doubts but hope that reason and truth and honesty will prevail. Then everything can be restored; everything (now) is built on pretense and lies.”

When asked about the Arabs currently living in the area she pointed out that, “Arabs were living side by side with Jews before the Oslo peace pretense in 1993. There was an exchange, business between Arabs and Jews.” She cited Sheik Jabiri’s peace tent in Hebron and his clan of 35,000 followers working with the Jews of Hebron to establish peaceful relations with them. “The ones who want to destroy Israel should be removed from the country, those who want to leave should leave. Those who are peaceful can live side by side. Israeli Arab citizens don’t want to live under the Arabs. Arabs are not the problem. We can’t deal with American pressure and UN interference.”

“For far too long,” declared Hotovely, “the Left has tried to convince the world of the legal and moral illegitimacy of Jewish settlement. It is time for a paradigm shift, and to establish once and for all that the Jewish people are not occupiers in the Land of Israel.”

Write to zhotovely@knesset.gov.il

The other 18 MKs are: Zeev Elkin, Feina Kirschenbaum, Avraham Michaeli, David Rotem, Yariv Levin, Robert Ilatov, Yitzhak Vaknin, Tzion Pinian, Uri Ariel, Danny Danon, Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), Michael ben Ari, Ari Eldad, Nissim Zeev, Uri Orbach, Miri Regev. Email them with their name in the same format at the same address.