The Electricity Law has passed its second and third readings in committee stage, after all revisions and objections were rejected. Voting in favor were MKs Waleed Taha, Sharon Rofe Ofir (Yisrael Beytenu), Raida Zoabi (Meretz), and Osama Saadi (Joint List). Before voting began, Taha, the committee's chairman, had MK Itamar Ben Gvir removed from the committee room. Ben Gvir had been broadcasting proceedings via Facebook Live. "This law will ensure that tens of thousands of homes can be connected to the power grid," said Taha. "Electricity is a fundamental right and not a punitive tool. This law will encourage proper planning and ensure that all fees are paid. It will advance equality between citizens." MK Orit Strook (Religious Zionism) attacked Taha, saying, "I am warning you: This is the first law to be placed on the statute book that enables the theft of land." Commenting on the dozens of reservations that were rejected, she said, "The Knesset cannot differentiate between one place and another. If those who build illegally - and no one asked them to build there - are allowed to connect their homes to the power grid, then certainly all the homes in the young settlements - which, according to the report compiled by Talya Sasson, were built at the instigation of the government - should be able to do the same. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett must now regularize the status of the young settlements at the very next cabinet meeting," she stressed. Addressing Taha personally, Strook continued: "As for you, MK Waleed Taha, you are fulfilling your obligation to the people who voted for you. You feel indebted to your community, and you are using all your parliamentary powers for the beneift of the public that voted for you, in order to give them what you think they deserve. Knesset members from the Yamina party, on the other hand, aren't doing a thing in order to give their public what they promised them. The bare minimum would be that they would at least get electricity. I hope that Yamina and New Hope will learn from you and take action in the Knesset plenum," she said. Related articles: 'This year we will demolish more than the PA builds' Khan al-Ahmar continues to expand Illegal Arab building near Efrat demolished Illegal Arab-built structures demolished south of Jerusalem Responding to the committee vote, Religious Zionism head MK Bezalel Smotrich said: "This is a law that promotes anarchy and destroys the few incentives remaining to people who built illegally, to regularize the status of their construction. Once they are connected to electricity, water, telephone, and internet, none of these lawbreakers will have the slightest motivation to do what is required to obtain full approval for the buildings they erected. "This is Yamina's new approach," Smotrich continued. "This is they way they are now doing things with the kosher supervision system and with conversions too. Shaked and Orbach are relying on the fact that this is a complicated issue with myriad details and that no one will really understand what it's all about - so they are permitting themselves to lie and fob people off with empty statements that have no connection with reality. But this law is a capitulation to the ridiculous demands of the United Arab List and a prize and an incentive to illegal construction and the Arab sector, which will now continue to grab more and more land in the Negev and the Galilee."
