Watch: Israel’s rule of annexation in West Bank

The Electronic Intifada 22 December 2016

Israel is due to evacuate more than 300 settlers from the Amona outpost, a colony built on land belonging to Palestinians in three nearby villages near Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.

The evacuation was ordered by Israel’s high court.

But legislators, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are pushing the so-called Regulation Bill through Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. If passed, it would retroactively legalize all of the approximately 100 unauthorized outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land throughout the West Bank.

The Israeli government meanwhile intends to relocate Amona’s settlers to private Palestinian land – “replacing one land theft by another,” as the anti-settlement group Peace Now has said.

Israel’s deputy minister of defense stated that the Regulation Bill is “a historic law that will put an end to the high court terror of the radical left.”

According to Ziv Stahl, research director of the human rights group Yesh Din, the legislation would make Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, the effective ruling body of the West Bank.

“Once the Knesset is the sovereign, we are not talking about a rule of occupation in the West Bank, we’re talking about a rule of annexation in the West Bank.”

Video by Keren Manor/Activestills, translation by Deema Darawshy.

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