Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) declared on Thursday that his party would present a bill normalizing the status of Amona to the Knesset this coming Sunday, claiming that the Prime Minister was dragging his feet on the issue and not promoting the legislation within the coalition. The proposed law, drawn up by MK Shuli Mualem (Jewish Home), would normalize the status of towns like Amona across Judea and Samaria, protecting them from ex post facto claims by Arabs presented years after the communities were built, challenging the ownership of the land. “On Sunday we will bring the ‘normalization law’ to a vote in the Knesset, and I expect that our friends in the Likud will support it,” Bennett told Army Radio . Bennett also lashed out at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, accusing him of avoiding the issue. “The head of the [Likud] is pressing on the brakes and telling us not to push the matter, because ‘we need to solve this [issue] some other way.’” “We tried other ways,” continued Bennett, “and unfortunately there was this double foot-dragging [there as well].” The Education Minister noted that a number of Likud MKs and ministers had signed pledges promising to back such a bill, and he expected the entire party would vote in favor once brought to a Knesset vote. “We must normalize the status of towns in Judea and Samaria already. This Sunday we will bring the law up for a vote and I expect from every [Likud] minister and MK to show up and support the law proposed by Shuli Mualem; we will bring it to a vote and we will push the law forward.”
