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 on Wednesday.
The bill, which was introduced by Religious Zionist Party Knesset member Orit Strock and Likud MK Avi Dichter, was voted down by 50-63. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett did not attend the vote.
“These are indeed good proposals that make a lot of sense, and that I have also signed off on,” said Shaked. Strock and Dichter, she said, had agreed to a delay to allow the interior and justice ministries to reach agreements with the coalition parties.
Dichter was adamant that the law would ultimately pass.
“There must be a law that says you cannot have one foot financially in Ramallah and one foot as a citizen in Jerusalem,” he said. “Those who pay a terrorist’s salary will also grant them citizenship. If the ministerial committee that discussed the matter of the legislation on 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.”
“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.”
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Israel Hayom.