A bill to annex Beitar Illit, a sizable settlement in the West Bank, was rejected by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. In a vote on the motion on Wednesday, the plan was rejected 45 to 8. The proposed bill aimed to control the city’s legal status in Israel. Lawmaker Oded Forer, the leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, introduced it as part of a larger initiative to promote sovereignty measures in the region.
He wrote on X after the vote that the government “chose to vote against a basic step of Israeli sovereignty,” accusing ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as well as members of their faction of “opposing” the bill and pretending they were not there.
The vote was held in the Knesset while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States, where he was scheduled to have another meeting with US President Donald Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for a New Year’s reception.
The Knesset voted on a similar West Bank annexation bill in October while US Vice President JD Vance was visiting. Netanyahu’s team viewed this as a “deliberate political provocation by the opposition” intended to heighten tensions during a high-level visit from Washington. The October vote and the Knesset’s move to annex the occupied West Bank were criticized by Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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