Haaretz
Adar1 28, 5765
The U.S. administration has warned Israel that
its failure to keep its promise to remove all outposts established in the
West Bank since March 2001 will harm relations between the countries and
could have an impact on American aid to Israel.
At their last
meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Dov Weisglass, the
prime minister's advisor, that President Bush expects Jerusalem to take
immediate action based on the conclusions and recommendations of attorney
Talia Sasson in her report on the outposts.
European Union foreign
policy coordinator Javier Solana has told Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
that the EU regards the evacuation of the illegal outposts as a vital step
toward renewal of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,
and also warned that any further attempts to postpone the implementation
of the promises to remove the outposts could harm Israel-EU
relations.
The report, submitted last night to Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, essentially confirms longstanding complaints by Palestinians and
activist groups like Peace Now that successive Israeli governments,
including after the Oslo Accords, approved and financed for decades the
establishment of outpost settlements on privately owned Palestinian
lead.
In many other cases, says the report, the Defense Ministry,
attorney general, and the IDF's Civil Administration ignored settler
incursions onto property they did not own - backed by ministers and senior
officials - to establish new settlements outside zoned areas in direct
violation of government decisions and regulations and to exploit the
sensitive security situation.
President Bush had in the past
acceded to Sharon's request to postpone the dismantling of the outposts
until a complete legal examination of the matter had been conducted. That
would have enabled the government to defend the dismantling when petitions
against it were brought to the High Court of Justice.
Sasson
concluded that there is no need for a new law to enable the evacuation and
dismantling of the outposts. This contradicts claims by settlers and their
Knesset supporters that new legislation is required for the government to
order the outposts removed and for the army and police to execute the
decision.
Sasson also recommends stiffening punishments meted out
to officials and others involved in violations of the law regarding
construction in the territories, including jail sentences and steep fines.
Her report says that the government's failure to dismantle the outposts
sends a message to settlers, soldiers, police and the public in general
that there is no real intention to evacuate illegal outposts, and that the
political echelon "speaks in two voices."
The Palestinian Authority
is planning to make the issue of the outposts a top priority during the
upcoming visit to Washington by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for meetings
with President Bush.
A senior official source who has long tracked
the issue of construction in the territories said last night that the
Hapoalim Bank money laundering case pales in comparison to the way
taxpayer money was laundered to put up outposts.
He said the Sasson
report exposes an "organized criminal conspiracy" in which the illegal
outposts were established with taxpayer money that was never earmarked for
that construction, with ministers, directors general, senior officials and
officers of the army all involved. The source said that the attorney
general could use the Sasson report as the basis for criminal
investigations against a host of officials past and present.
The
systematic breaking of the law was known to successive attorneys general,
and a number of complaints had been made in the past to the police about
suspected criminal activity. Just last week, the IDF officer at the Civil
Administration in charge of infrastructure, Lt. Col. Yair Blumenthal, was
arrested for suspected involvement in a scheme to forge documents for the
purpose of taking over Palestinian land in the
territories.
Although the state comptroller has revealed in the
past suspicions about lawbreaking by government officials, no attorney
general ordered an investigation against officials such as then-housing
minister Sharon and a number of "settlement advisors" to defense
ministers.
In May 1997, then-attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein
drafted an opinion stating that the Har Hemed settlement in the northern
West Bank was illegal. In November 1998, the Interior Ministry allocated
NIS 250,000 to "a new neighborhood for Har Hemed." The Housing Ministry
allocated NIS 150,000, and the World Zionist Organization allocated NIS
125,000.
In May of the same year, Rubinstein had written to the
Central Command's top officer that "the rule of law is being trampled upon
and scorned." He demanded immediate steps be taken to evict settlers who
had trespassed onto Palestinian lands, saying that the trespassers could
be evicted by force if the trespass was "fresh," but that delays would
enable the trespassers to claim they were immune to such
evictions.
In June 2003, Rubinstein sent a circular to government
ministries demanding they cease transferring funds for illegal
construction activity in the territories.
In the summer of 1999,
Col. Shlomo Politus, the legal advisor of the Civil Administration, wrote
that the matter of mobile homes being stationed in unauthorized sites -
the first stage in the establishment of an outpost - "creates the
impression that the right hand of the authorities in the region does not
know what the left hand is doing."
Politus said that in some cases,
settlers surprised administration officials who arrived with eviction
orders by showing the officers letters signed by the head of
infrastructure - Blumenthal - and that dozens of mobile homes were
stationed in the territories on the basis of approval by the general of
the command, without anything being done to enforce the law.
The
Sasson report also confirms the findings of the State Comptroller in his
2003 report, in which the defense minister and his advisor on settlements
are said to have either actively or passively enabled the transfer of
mobile homes to new outpost sites.
Sasson also confirms the
comptroller's findings that funds sent to settlements for security, road
paving, electricity and water, lighting and other infrastructure needs
went to illegal outposts.