Meretz parliamentarian pushes bill to compensate Israeli settlers
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Knesset member Ilan Gilon says that most of the settlers were motivated by affordable housing, not ideology, and will agree to return to Israel if offered compensation.
The Meretz faction chairman, Knesset member Ilan Gilon, advanced a bill for compensating settlers who would voluntarily leave their homes in the West Bank, even though he knew in advance that the bill would fall in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. The bill was voted on this Sunday, Feb. 23, and faced opposition on the part of most government ministers, including Finance Minister Yair Lapid, chairman of Yesh Atid. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni abstained.
Gilon had anticipated exactly this scenario. A short time after the vote was taken, he hurried to argue that even those ministers ostensibly in favor of the two-state solution in fact voted for the continuation of construction in the settlements.
According to the Meretz faction bill submitted by its chairman, settlers who request evacuation would receive full monetary compensation for their homes. The state would assume full custody of the houses, without using them. Just like the process adopted during the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, an authority would be founded to carry out the evacuation. In this way, West Bank residents could move into the boundaries of the Green Line without having to wait for an agreement with the Palestinians. Gilon argues that numerous settlers are interested in such a law, which would save a lot of money in the event of a future mass evacuation.
Of course, this bill is nothing more than a parliamentary trick designed to embarrass Lapid and Livni. Nevertheless, it behooves us to take a close look at this bill, as it clearly reflects the atmosphere of confusion and bafflement in the political system in anticipation of the publication of US Secretary of State John Kerry's document. Gilon, a loyal soldier of the diplomatic left, is trying to fight for his views in the same ballpark used by Knesset member Miri Regev (Likud), who presented confrontational bills for the annexation of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. To his disappointment, Gilon discovered that his actions aroused far less interest than that of his Likud counterpart.
