<div><p>The Israeli parliament on Wednesday passed the first reading of a bill requiring a referendum to approve a pull-out from annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as part of any peace deal.</p><p>Sixty-eight voted in favour, 22 against and one abstained. Another 31 MPs were absent from the 120-seat parliament.</p><p>The government-backed bill, which still needs to pass a second and third reading before becoming law, is seen as a boost to those opposing Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights under a future peace deal with Syria.</p><p>The bill requires that any peace agreement reached between the Israeli government which entails an Israeli withdrawal from annexed territories must first be approved by a 61-MP majority in the 120-member parliament, or Knesset.</p><p>If approved in parliament, the agreement will have to be put to a national referendum within 80 days.</p><p>The bill concerns the strategic Golan plateau and east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed, in moves not recognised by the international community.</p><p>Syria has repeatedly demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan in exchange for peace and the Palestinians want to make east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.</p><p>One of the bill's backers, MP Yariv Levin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, rejected criticism that the bill sought to impede peace.</p><p>"It is only appropriate that fateful and significant questions such as the country's borders should be voted by the widest possible majority and not only in Knesset," he told AFP.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=65098361&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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