by Marissa Newman
Any plan to cede land in Israel, East
Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights, as part of a future peace agreement,
must be put to a public referendum, according to a law approved by the
Knesset on Wednesday.
The
law does not cover the West Bank, where a decision on territorial
concessions, precedent suggests, would remain the prerogative of the
cabinet.
Sixty-eight Knesset members voted in favor of
the bill in both the second and third readings, with none voting against
or abstaining, as opposition MKs continued their ongoing boycott of plenum votes on coalition-sponsored bills.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime
proponent of the legislation, had voiced his support for the referendum
law again earlier Wednesday.
“When we come to make such a fateful decision,
if we get to that, it must be brought to the people,” he said. “This is
the only way to preserve peace among us, which is no less important, in
my eyes, than the external peace [with the Palestinians]. The decision
we make today is historic and we must be proud that the coalition passed
it.”
The bill, proposed by coalition chair MK Yariv
Levin (Likud), MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) and Orit Strock (Jewish
Home), is nearly identical to a 2010 law that requires a public
referendum for land-for-peace deals. But the earlier law faces a High
Court of Justice petition on the grounds, petitioners claim, that it
unconstitutionally limits the powers of the Knesset. The new law anchors
the previous law as a “basic law,” which has special constitutional
status.
The referendum law was initially met with
fierce opposition by a number of prominent Knesset members, including
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu), former opposition
leader Shelly Yachimovich (Labor), Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh
Atid), and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua), who is managing the
talks with the Palestinians.
“When we declare war, we don’t ask the
people,” Livni said in July. “This is how it should also be regarding
any diplomatic settlement.” In a critique leveled at the proposed law,
Liberman referred to it as a way for “decision makers to run away from
responsibility.”
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish
Home), by contrast, had touted a referendum as “the only way to prevent a
rift in the nation.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Marissa Newman
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-passes-referendum-bill-for-land-swaps/
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