Jewish Home MKs

Justice Minister hails deal to pass Regulation Law, but concedes Amona residents will pay a price.

By Ruet Hadar, ARUTZ SHEVA

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) responded on Monday to the deal worked out between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) on Sunday to pass the RegulationLlaw and resolve issue of Amona.

“We think that the Regulation Law is an extraordinary historic achievement, even without the Amona clause,” Shaked told Army Radio on Monday. “The residents of Amona are paying a very heavy price, but this price isn’t being paid for nothing; we’re getting in return normalization for the entire [Jewish] settlement [enterprise] in Judea and Samaria.”

Now, Shaked added, the coalition must help residents of Amona’s transition to the new site for their community, and avoid a confrontational evacuation.

“We’re planning on sitting down to speak with [the residents of Amona], because a mutually agreed upon evacuation will save a lot of heartache and a lot of money.”

MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home) was more circumspect in his assessment of the deal.

“I feel terrible that we were unable to prevent the removal of Amona from its [present] location and that dozens of families will have to be evacuated and be removed from their homes.”

Nevertheless, Yogev continued, he chose to look at the deal ‘as a cup that is half full [rather than half empty], since with the passage of the Regulation Law along with the agreement to use the Absentee Property Law, will allow Amona to remain on the [same] mountain and, God-willing, expand with the purchase of lands.”

The agreement hammered out, tentatively called the “Regulation Package”, would secure the passage of the Regulation Law — but without a clause retroactively applying the law to communities already slated for demolition by Israel’s Supreme Court.

The Regulation Law would, if passed, protect Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria from ex post facto claims of ownership on the land made years after the towns were built. It is estimated that potentially thousands of Jewish homes built with government aid would be protected by the law.

Without the clause providing for retroactive normalization, however, the community of Amona north of Jerusalem, which is slated for demolition by December 25th, will not be protected by the Regulation Law.

As part of the arrangement, the government will apply the Absentee Property Law to those plots in Amona which have no active claims against them, normalizing their status. The remaining homes in Amona will be relocated to those nearby sites, thus keeping the community largely intact.

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Source:: Israpundit

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