A bill to revoke the citizenship and residency of terrorists receiving stipends from the Palestinian Authority failed to pass a preliminary reading in the Knesset, Wednesday, with 50 lawmakers voting in favor of the legislation and 63 against.
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The vote took place after Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked of the Yamina party violated an earlier agreement with Religious Zionist Party MK Orit Strock – who along with Likud MK Avi Dichter introduced the legislation, refusing to postpone the vote by two weeks.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett did not even bother showing up for the vote.
The legislation failed to pass the preliminary reading although Shaked called the legislation appropriate and said she supported revoking terrorists' citizenship in principle. Shaked even signed on to the bill prior to her appointment as a government minister.
Israel Hayom has learned coalition members suggested Dichter and Strock reach an agreement on the proposed law and bring it to a vote on an agreed-upon date. According to coalition sources, they voted against the bill because Dichter and Strock violated the agreement when they brought it for a preliminary vote.
According to the principles of the law, any Israeli citizen or permanent resident sentenced to prison for terrorist activity who has been shown to receive stipends for their actions from or on behalf of the PA will lose their citizenship or permanent residency status, to be canceled by the interior minister. Such an individual will be directly released to the Palestinian territories upon completing their prison sentence.
The bill's preamble states that: "Many people who hold Israeli citizenship or residency at this time receive monthly payments from the Palestinian Authority as income and compensation for carrying out acts of terror. These salaries gradually increase the longer they serve in prison.
"It is inconceivable that Israeli citizens and residents who not only betrayed the country and Israeli society but also agreed to accept and continue to enjoy payment from the PA as a salary for perpetrating an act of terror would continue to hold Israeli citizenship or residency.
The preamble notes that "revoking someone's citizenship or residency is not a trivial matter. Therefore the present proposal gives decisive weight to the considerations of the interior minister on the individual's actions."
Dichter: Those who pay terrorists' salaries will also grant them citizenship
"There must be a law that says you cannot have one foot financially in Ramallah and one foot as a citizen in Jerusalem. That won't happen," Dichter said. "Those who pay a terrorist's salary will also grant them citizenship. If the ministerial committee that discussed the matter of the legislation Sunday had decided to discuss my proposed legislation in another two weeks, I would have accepted it and been understanding. Since they postponed the discussion by four months, we decided to bring the bill to the Knesset plenum today."
He said, "This was a vote to determine the stripping of citizenship from Israeli terrorists who receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority with no tricks involved: a law, plain and simple. Today the government proved it is captive to the Arab parties and that is how we will need to treat it [i.e. as a hostage]. We will not rest. This law will pass."
Shaked said: "These are indeed good proposals that make a lot of sense and that I have also signed off on. That is why we spoke with those introducing [the legislation] and offered them to sit with the Justice and Interior Ministries and try to reach agreements, and if they were to be reached, we would support the proposal.
"The introducers [of the bill] agreed to a two-week postponement, and when it was not made clear that agreements would be reached within two weeks, they decided to bring the proposal to a vote, which as was stated, was rejected," she explained.
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