Power struggle: Bill to hook up illegal Arab homes to grid passes in stormy session

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/power-struggle-bill-to-hook-up-illegal-arab-homes-to-grid-passes-in-stormy-session/

The Knesset was the scene of ill-tempered verbal jousting on Wednesday morning as lawmakers deliberated a bill that would allow thousands of illegally built homes, mostly in Arab communities, to connect to the power grid, then passed it in its second and third readings.

The debate began with a long speech in Arabic by Ra’am MK Walid Taha, chair of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, in an apparent attempt to buy time for more coalition lawmakers to arrive.

The opposition then tried to embarrass the coalition by proposing an amendment that would also hook illegal West Bank outposts up to the electricity grid.

The Electricity Bill, proposed by the coalition’s Islamist Ra’am party, addresses the issue of more than 130,000 Arab Israelis who live in illegally built homes across the country that cannot be connected to the national grid under existing legislation.