Bill to Allow Contacts with PLO is Held Up in Knesset Committee

Proposed legislation to decriminalize contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization is making its way through the Knesset at a slower pace than its sponsors had hoped.

Opposition lawmakers succeeded Wednesday in winning a two- to three-week delay in a key committee vote on whether to send the bill to the Knesset floor for its second and third readings. They argued that the Knesset Law Committee should first hear more testimony from security experts on the bill’s implications.

The bill passed its first reading early this month by a razor-thin margin of 37-36.

A spokesman for the Likud bloc, which requested the additional witnesses, termed the delay “a major success” for those opposed to lifting the ban on meetings with PLO officials.

Knesset member Avraham Poraz of the left-wing Meretz bloc termed the postponement a transparent attempt by the opposition to slow down the legislative journey of the bill and prevent it from becoming law.

But the committee chairman, Dedi Zucker, himself a member of Meretz, said the law is too important to be pushed through by a coalition steamroller. Likud’s request for expert evidence is justified and reasonable, Zucker told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Political observers nevertheless felt the delay would inevitably reduce the momentum of pressure within the Cabinet — mainly by ministers of Zucker’s own party — for a softening of government opposition to opening direct talks with the PLO.

The government itself has always maintained there is no inconsistency between backing a law allowing Israeli citizens to meet with the PLO and opposing negotiations with the organization. But neither the left, which supports both types of contacts, nor the right, which opposes both, accepts that distinction.

Bitter debate over the law continued at a session of the Law Committee on Wednesday, sharpened by the knowledge that the Cabinet was considering whether it should debate, for the first time ever, changing Israel’s policy toward the PLO.

Likud members charged that the purpose of the new law was to grant legitimacy to the PLO. Likud Knesset member Ron Nachman, mayor of the West Bank settlement of Ariel, said the law would be seen by the Palestinians as a victory for terrorism.