Israel’s Super Majority Bill has moved ahead another step towards becoming law, with unanimous passage Sunday by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.
The bill, advanced two weeks ago by the Bayit Yehudi party led by Minister Naftali Bennett, would make it more difficult for the Knesset to vote away pieces of the capital in any future peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
Under the measure, the government could not sign any deal to hand over sovereignty of any part of Jerusalem to anyone – foreign government, agency or the Palestinian Authority — without the agreement of a minimum of an 80-vote majority of the 120-member Knesset.
The current basic law requires the consent of only 61 Knesset members, a minimal majority, and much easier to topple.
“We will prevent a situation such as that in 2000 when [then-Prime Minister] Ehud Barak wanted to hand over the Temple Mount and two-thirds of the Old City to [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat” during talks in the United States, Bennett wrote Sunday in a tweet.
However, the bill still must pass at least two committee processes, and three readings on the floor of the Knesset, before becoming law, and there are only two weeks left in this summer’s session before the parliament breaks until after the Jewish holy days.