Joint List MKs have reacted angrily to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call to increase the pace of enforcing demolition orders issued against homes built “without permits” by the Arab population. Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman has rejected any comparison between such building and the illegal construction in the occupied West Bank outpost of Amona, which is due to be evacuated on December 25.

Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Photo: Al Ittihad)

”The latest directives of the prime minister represent vengefulness on the part of the extremist right wing government in Israel. Arab citizens build their homes on private land handed down by their families for generations. It is the government policy [that] is opposed to the approval of master plans that caused [such building] to be classified as illegal,” said Touma-Sliman in reaction to reports that the prime minister had spoken to Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan Saturday evening, December 17, about plans to “enforce laws against illegal building in the Arab sector.”

In a video posted on Facebook Friday, Netanyahu referred to the Amona evacuation and said that there would have to be enforcement against illegal Arab building too. “I will fight for there to be one law for all, something that has not been the case for decades,” said Netanyahu. Arab leaders and residents held an emergency meeting in the northern town of Arara Saturday night to discuss Netanyahu’s threat.

Touma-Sliman described the Amona construction and that at other outposts as being carried out by “gangs of settlers taking over private Palestinian property and building on it under the sponsorship of the government that sees to the subjugation of the law and legislation in order to continue settlement.” She continued: “Not only is this comparison without foundation, it proves again that the government of Israel wants the Arab population to pay the existential, civic and political price for the occupation and settlement policy,” said Touma-Sliman.

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