US opposes Israeli bill to repeal Disengagement in northern Samaria

The US voiced its opposition to the Knesset’s final vote to repeal the 2005 Disengagement Law in northern Samaria, a move that could pave the way for the reconstruction of the four West Bank settlements that were destroyed there 18 years ago.

“We have been very clear [that] we oppose the bill,” US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the vote, which was expected to take place late Monday night or on Tuesday.

He noted that the move ran counter to the understandings worked out between former prime minister Ariel Sharon and former US president George Bush in 2004, prior to Israel’s evacuation of 21 settlements in Gaza and four in northern Samaria.

“This is something [that] was agreed to with president Bush,” Nides said.

The legislation would remove the ban on the entry of Israelis to the site of the four destroyed settlements – Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim — which are now closed military zones. Passage of the bill will not impact the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, which remains in force. It is limited solely to northern Samaria.

Huge symbolic importance

But it has huge symbolic importance for the evacuees from the 25 destroyed settlements and opponents of the 2005 Disengagement, who see this as the first step toward repealing the law as it applies to Gaza as well.

The bill’s approval will also help expand Israel’s footprint in the West Bank, at a time when the United States wants Israel to refrain from unilateral actions in that region. At the quintet summit in Aqaba in February and again in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday, Israel promised to briefly suspend the announcement of new settlement activity.

The US believes that such actions run counter to efforts to prevent a violent outbreak in the West Bank and Gaza during the month of Ramadan.

On Monday night, politicians prepared for a historic moment for the Israeli Right.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, who has worked to restore the four destroyed northern Samaria communities since their destruction, said he did not believe that the Biden administration was concerned about the bill.

“Not a single American official has spoken to any single Israeli official on that matter,” he said. To prove his point, he pointed to an interview that Channel 12 had done on Monday with US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who “totally ignored” a direct question about the Disengagement bill.

“The Americans don’t care that much,” said Edelstein who added that “the ambassador has my personal phone number and he never bothered to call because it is not an issue of major interest to anyone.”

Edelstein said the bill’s passage would give hope that the Knesset could change this “most terrible mistake that had been committed by the government.”

He also believes that there is a direct link between the 2005 evacuation in northern Samaria and the high level of terror against Israelis in that area.

“As we all know, the main area of terror attacks and of the trouble that we are facing in Judea and Samaria is in northern Samaria.

“I hope that the moment it will not be a Judenrein area but will be as any other part of Area C – that there will be a decrease in terror activity.”

The head of the unit for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Ghasan Alyan announced a series of pre-Ramadan gestures to the Palestinians. The announcement came one day after the Sharm summit, which the US has described as the most positive interaction between Israeli and Palestinians since their last peace efforts broke down in 2013.