Turn on English subtitles for an explanation by Regavim’s CEO about the new “communities” discussed
What are the “new settlements” in the Negev that Raam Party leader Mansour Abbas is demanding?
When you imagine the establishment of new settlements, you probably think of architects and engineers who sit down together and plan framework and infrastructure of any new settlement down to the smallest detail.
But things in the Negev work differently. Hundreds of thousands of illegal homes and structures throughout the Negev are scattered across enormous swaths of land. The policy that Abbas is pushing for is to simply draw an imaginary blue line around each cluster of illegal structures and call it a community. Does that solve water, electricity, and construction problems? Is this a sensible, environmentally or socially sustainable utilization of the land? Of course not! Will it restore the land the state has lost to the huge expansion of illegal construction? No; quite the opposite.
The new agreement means that the State of Israel (and the Jewish residents of the Negev) will cede more and more land in the Negev for Bedouin “settlements,” and equitable, sustainable long-term planning be damned!
?? Public petition: Don’t sell out the Negev!
Petition the leaders of all Zionist political parties to take a stand against the ridiculous demands of Mansour Abbas & his Islamist Raam party.
The bottom line is that Ra’am’s “nice ideas” are a disaster for the Negev, for Israeli sovereignty over what amounts to two thirds of the country’s total area, and for future national development.
Don’t be fooled: If Ra’am get their way, the country will essentially be split in half, with the northern and southern parts divided by a midriff section controlled by Bedouin clans – devoid of modern planning, beyond the reach of Israeli governance, a breeding ground for stunted communities with no sources of legal employment or industry and no prospects for development. The Zionist vision for the Negev and for the country will be nothing more than a distant memory.
The details of the coalition agreements publicized in the media yesterday evening (7 June) reveal that Bennett and Saar, who blamed Netanyahu for the failure of governance in the Negev, are not only failing to provide solutions – they are exacerbating the problem.
Aside from approving the whitewashing of thousands of illegal structures on about 11,000 dunams of land to create three “new communities“, the coalition agreements do not stipulate what will happen to the rest of the illegal Bedouin squatters’ camps nine months from now, and neither Bennett’s Yemina Party nor Saar’s New Hope Party will have the ability to influence the outcome in a government kept afloat by Mansour Abbas and his Islamist Raam Party.
The coalition agreements place both the Bedouin Settlement Authority and the Knesset’s Interior Committee, the key actors in the Negev issue, under the complete control of the left-wing bloc and Raam.
This situation has unparalleled destructive potential, setting a course for total abandonment of the Negev while rewarding rampant illegal Bedouin construction that imperils the healthy development of the Negev, home of the vast majority of the State of Israel’s land reserves.
Details of the coalition agreements publicized in the media this evening reveal that @naftalibennett & @gidonsaar, who blamed @netanyahu for the failure of governance in the #Negev, are not only failing to provide solutions – they are exacerbating the problem. pic.twitter.com/shk5R618m8
In an attempt to garner Arab parties’ support, the Israeli left is now seeking the total repeal of Amendment 116, better known as the Kaminitz Law, which seeks to address the epidemic of illegal construction.
Illegal construction on public and private land is a national epidemic that has been ravaging the Israeli landscape for far too long. Each year, thousands of structures spring up in violation of Israel’s Planning and Construction Law; current estimates number them in the hundreds of thousands.
This wildcat construction threatens the prospects for planned, organized construction and development, stymies formulation of long-range planning policy and stunts efforts to develop modern national and local infrastructure, but first and foremost, it endangers the resolution of Israel’s housing crisis, which is particularly acute in the minority sector.
Despite often repeated claims to the contrary, the majority of Arab settlements in Israel have municipal master plans that enable legal construction and development. On the other hand, most of the land in these communities is privately owned, and illegal construction is both widespread and unenforced, resulting in a supply-demand imbalance that prevents the implementation of existing development plans.
A special committee, headed by Deputy Attorney General (Civil Affairs) Erez Kaminitz, presented a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of illegal construction and its devastating impact on the Knesset in January 2016, and proposed a series of legislative amendments that would vastly improve the state’s ability to address the problems and more efficiently enforce Israel’s Planning and Construction Law.
These proposed amendments, known collectively as Amendment 116 but commonly referred to as the Kaminitz Law, were ratified by the 20th Knesset in 2017 and incorporated in Chapter 10 (“Oversight, Enforcement and Penalties”) of Israel’s Planning and Construction Law.
Amendment 116 mandates stiff penalties for illegal construction and places efficient enforcement tools and significantly enhanced authority in the hands of inspectors, including the authority to issue work-stop and administrative demolition orders that cut through lengthy, complex legal procedures that had been required in the past. Hefty administrative fines were instituted as a deterrent to new illegal construction, and municipalities were empowered to act swiftly and decisively against offenders. In addition, the Kaminitz Law required the relevant authorities to revamp demolition priorities, carry out more efficient mapping and reporting of construction violations, and more.
According to data presented to the Knesset in December 2019, in the two years following the Kaminitz Law’s implementation, common construction offenses were reduced by 41 percent, and serious construction offenses were slashed by 75 percent.
Since the Kaminitz Law’s ratification, the Joint Arab List Party has waged an unrelenting battle to repeal it: In 2019, they conditioned their recommendation to the president of a candidate to form a government on the law’s repeal. In another attempt in late 2019, they conditioned their vote on the dissolution of the Knesset upon the repeal of the Kaminitz Law. In October 2020, an attempt by Knesset member Gadeer Mreeh (Yesh Atid-Telem) to legislate a “suspension” of the law pending approval of master plans for Arab municipalities was defeated.
Bowing to this incessant political pressure, in November 2020 then-Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn announced that the attorney general had reached an agreement with the Justice Ministry, the Treasury and the Joint List to institute a two-year enforcement moratorium against existing residential structures in Arab and Druze municipalities and structures in the agricultural sector eligible for legalization. The agreement also calls for expedited planning and registration activity during the moratorium period.
Nissenkorn’s “agreement” amounts to a severe limitation of the provisions of the law and a dangerous circumvention of the Knesset’s authority. It undermines the basic concepts of legislative democracy and the rule of law, protects offenders and encourages offenses. But that is apparently not enough: Left-wing parties, in an attempt to garner the support of the Arab parties for the coalition-building mandate, are now seeking the total repeal of the law.
This would restore the status quo ante, resulting in a complete reversal of the progress that has been made since 2017 against illegal construction. It would once again deprive municipal authorities of the ability to act effectively against construction criminals, making it difficult to promote stable, long-term planning policy for responsible utilization of Israel’s limited land reserves and severely impairing the state’s ability to develop national and local construction and infrastructure plans—particularly in the minority communities that suffer most from development inequity.
The Zionist parties must act in every way to prevent the repeal of the Kaminitz Law, and work to strengthen the rule of law in general. Israel’s Planning and Construction Law, including Amendment 116, was designed to create a rational land-use policy that will ensure a healthy future for all citizens of Israel.
