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A protester resists evacuation from an outpost. (AP file)
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| By Associated Press March 8, 2005 |
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| The Migron outpost. (AP file) |
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Settlement leaders painted a picture of widespread state complicity in setting up unauthorized West Bank outposts, contradicting Israel's repeated claim that it is trying to dismantle dozens of outposts in line with an internationally backed peace plan.
The settler leaders confirmed reported findings of a government-sponsored study on the outposts to be released Wednesday. Excerpts were published Tuesday in the Maariv daily.
The settlement outposts dotting the West Bank are seen as seeds of larger communities, in violation of assurances by successive Israeli governments that they would not build new settlements. Locations were often chosen to break up contiguity of Palestinian areas and prevent the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Zvi Hendel, a settler leader, said Tuesday that various government ministries and agencies have cooperated over the years in setting up outposts. He told Israel Radio that the Israeli military administration in the West Bank provided the lands, the Housing Ministry bought mobile homes, Defense Ministry officials gave permits for trailers to be moved from place to place, (and) the army provided security for the setters.
"You know well when a state doesn't want something to happen it doesn't happen -- and certainly when the land is in control of the military and when a state allows for things to happen, then they happen," Hendel said.
Hendel, a legislator, said the support for the outposts extended to the highest levels of government. Outposts began springing up in 1993, as a protest against an interim peace deal with the Palestinians.
"All the defense ministers ... were part of the secret," he said. "You can't do it without the defense minister, you can't move mobile homes, you can't move a nail in the West Bank without the army's agreement. So let's not fool ourselves. This is what the state of Israel wanted. We carried out its mission."
Former Housing Minister Yitzhak Levy, another settler leader, said not a single penny went where it wasn't meant to go.
"It's possible there were flagrant violations that began with the prime minister, with the prime ministers, with the chiefs of staffs, the ministers, the attorney general," Levy told Israel Radio. "If all of these people are in violation, then that tells you it is government policy."
Hundreds of millions of shekels were spent on the unauthorized communities, he said.
"Such sums of money don't simply disappear from budgets," Levy said.
In 1998, Sharon, then the foreign minister, called on settlers to seize hilltops to prevent the handover of additional West Bank land to the Palestinians. Since becoming prime minister and accepting the road map plan in 2003, he has called for the dismantling of outposts. However, the Israeli military has removed only a few, and some were quickly rebuilt by settlers. The government argues it cannot move more decisively because of legal challenges. The government study of the outposts was conducted, in part, to respond to the challenges.
The frank comments by settler leaders, who generally decline to discuss settlement funding, appeared to be an attempt to settle scores with Sharon over his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer.
The report on the outposts and the comments by the settler leaders are liable to cause tensions with the United States at a time when it hopes to build on momentum toward peacemaking in the Mideast.
Paul Patin, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, said "we continue to expect Israel to abide" by commitments to dismantle promises.
Former state prosecutor Talia Sasson, who wrote the government study, has recommended that Sharon consider possible legal action against government employees who assisted in the construction of unauthorized outposts, Israel Radio said.
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