In a headline grabbing move befitting her effervescent ambition, MK Stav Shafir (Zionist Camp) demanded that AG Avichai Mandelblit launch an investigation into whether or not MK Bezalel Smotrich’s home is standing on private Arab land.
Calling the possibility “shameful,” Shafir cited aerial photographs shown on Channel 2 News Friday, suggesting that the Habayit Hayehudi politician’s home in the settlement of Kdumim in Judea and Samaria may have been built on land that had previously been used by local Arab farmers.
Shafir suggested that should it be found to be standing on illegal land, it would indicate a conflict of interest regarding the Regulation Act which passed a week ago and which had initially been submitted by MK Smotrich. The new law compels Arab claimants against Israeli settlements to accept market value compensation rather than insist on the demolition of the erring settlement as had been case in Judea and Samaria under the IDF’s civilian government.
Smotrich responded calling the reports by Ha’raetz and Channel 2 “fake research,” and adding: “the only conflict of interest belongs to reporters who try to represent the Palestinians in order to evict Jews from their home. But in such a case of self-loathing, no regulation act can help.”
Shafir asked the AG, who makes no secret of his personal objection to the Regulation Act, to add the possibility of Smotrich’s alleged conflict of interest to his case against the new legislation before the Supreme Court.