Education Minister and Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett on Tuesday morning consented to a request from Coalition Chairman MK David Bitan (Likud) to postpone a vote in the Ministerial Legislative Committee on imposing Israeli law on the city of Ma’ale Adumim, some 4 miles east of Jerusalem in Judea and Samaria.
Bennett made clear that the postponement is only for one week, and not, as Bitan originally requested, three months.
The Ministerial Legislative Committee, headed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) had been scheduled for Tuesday, and MK Bitan spoke to her, asking for the postponement. Meanwhile, the bill’s co-sponsor MK Bezalel Smotcrich (Habayit Hayehudi) is yet to remove it from Tuesday’s agenda.
Responding to concerns on the part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s circle and Defense Minister Liberman that running the debate on sovereignty for Ma’aleh Adumim during the visit to Israel by President Donald Trump’s diplomatic adviser Jason Greenblatt would badly shake US-Israel relations, MK Smotrich tweeted Monday: “There’s no justification to hide from our friend overseas the broad public support for imposing Israeli sovereignty over Ma’ale Adumim. The bill stays on the agenda.”
Smotrich published a poll showing that “close to 80%” of Israeli Jews support sovereignty over the settlements, adding that these findings should not be hidden from Greenblatt and the White House, because friends don’t hide the truth from friends.
Walla cited Likud MKs who suggest the Habayit Hayehudi move was intended to capitalize on Netanyahu’s tenuous position regarding sovereignty, in order to bring home the four settlements seats “stolen” by Netanyahu in the 2015 election.