JANUARY2007
news from palestine
Dear
friends, As far
as I can tell (in the limited time I can spend on
the search), the (Hebrew) review below, by Itzhal
Laor, of Dalia Karpel's new documentary "The
Diaries of Yossef Nachmani" has so far been
printed only in the Hebrew version of
"Haaretz" (and reprinted in Occupation
Magazine). The same, I believe, same goes for
today's (Hebrew) review, by Uri Klein, of
yesterday night's (Jan 14) airing of the film on
Israeli Channel 1 (http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/813557.html). In
the absence, so far, of any English reviews, I've
included below the public relations description
of the film, published by the Jewish Film
Festival (ongoing now in NY City; Jan. 11-26). I cannot
stress enough the importance I attach to this
film. Its well-researched, carefully supported
narrative makes a huge contribution towards
dismantling the popular historical view that so
many of us have been taught to accept. Through
the key case of Tiberias and the process put in
motion in the Galilee over the decade leading up
to the founding of Rela http://filmlinc.com/wrt/programs/nyjff06.htm The
Diaries of Yossef Nachmani NY
Premiere http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=18582
Campaign for Right to Entry Press ConferenceJanuary 14th, 2007 | Posted in Press Releases, Denial of entry FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE by the Campaign for the Right to Entry, The Campaign for Right to Entry/Re-entry will be holding a press conference on the new developments in Israel’s denial of entry policy The Campaign for Right of Entry/Re-entry will provide the notice recently issued by the Israeli Authorities that changes Israel’s policy of denying entry to foreign nationals traveling into the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The notice outlines new procedures regarding access to the West Bank for foreign nationals. The Campaign regards this as a rare moment where the Israeli Authorities acknowledge in writing the severe humanitarian crisis brought on by Israeli policies of denying foreign nationals the right to family reunification and entry to the oPt. Yet the crisis directly affecting over 45,000 foreign nationals remains unresolved. The Campaign will present an analysis of the
recent developments . Location: Palestinian Media Center (PMC), Ramallah
Israeli Occupation Government Builds a New Synagogue Near Al-Aqsa Mosque, Inside the Palestinian Area New synagogue near Al-Aqsa Mosque PNN, (Jerusalem) Palestine
News Network Thursday, 11 January 2007 Residents of occupied East Jerusalem's Old City are requesting international assistance as Israeli occupation forces move forward with plans to build a Jewish Synagogue in the heart of the Palestinian area. The exact location is just 50 meters from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is itself already under threat. In a field visit by the Al-Aqsa Media Foundation, Walid Al-Zerba and Ismail Al-Duwaik, the potential damage was recorded. The construction is adjacent to Al-Zerba's home. He said, “A month ago they began bringing in the equipment and staring the work on an area of 200 meters squared taken for the Jews after the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem began in 1967. The first step was a synagogue and at the same time they started work on another structure on a plot of land belonging to the Department of Islamic Endowments covering an area of 70 meters squared.” Al-Zerba told PNN, “This matter summoned our intervention and we demanded of the workers to know who was responsible for the work they were doing, but they said that they were merely do cleaning and maintenance around the Muslim site and that they were not attempting to steal the plot of earth.” He continued, “But these statements were not correct. Vehicles and armed soldiers began pouring into the area and a few days ago began construction that made it clear it is a synagogue. The door is on the south side, also making it clear that the next target is the adjacent Islamic Endowments' plot of land.” The Israeli land-grab for Jerusalem and the illegal annexation has been ongoing for years. The concern is how many of these “changes” will be reversible if international law is ever upheld in the city. United Nations Resolution 35 is just one of many that addresses the issue of the Israeli colonization of Jerusalem. “The 'Basic Law' on Jerusalem and the proclamation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel are null and void and must be rescinded.”
***Military prison commander, First Sgt.
Maj. suspended over misconduct. ***Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel |
***Dahamesh
Village near Ramla in imminent danger of destruction
By Nori Al-Okbi,
Beduin Rights Defence Association
6/1/2007
(Email sending-TOI-Billboard,
January 6, 2007)
The village of Dahamesh near Ramla is in imminent danger
of destruction. The village has close to a thousand
inhabitants, who are denied all municipal services. Their
houses were given demolition notices, and the entire
village is in imminent danger of being demolished and
completely erased. Five families living crowded in a
single house, among the many who received such demolition
orders, have be3en informed that their house is
“next in line” when destroyers next arrive in
the village. The village is located at the Lod Valley
Area, on a piece of privately-owned land 160 dunums
(about 40 acres) in size, It had been founded in 1932,
with the encouragement of the then mayor of Ramlah.
The Present Mayor of Ramla, Yoel Lavi, notorious for
various racist anti-Arab statements, has declared that
“The solution” for this village is “Two
D-9 bulldozers, accompanied by two companies of Border
Guards” (Riot Police). Once these become available,
“The bulldozers will move freely, from one side of
the village to another”.
No one in authority has reprimanded the mayor for his
words. We call upon the Prime Minister and the Ministers
of Justice and of the Interior to end the cruel policy of
demolitions against the Arab citizens of Israel.
We call upon all civic organizations in and outside
Israel to intervene with the authorities and demand an
end to this brutal policy.
A protest tent was erected at Dahamesh Village. All
visitors, press reporters, observers and solidarity
delegations are most welcome.
Contact:
Arafat Ismail, Head of the Dahamesh Village local
Association 052-3202055
Nori Al-Okbi, Head of The Beduin Rights Defence
Association 054-54605565
Campaign for the Right of Entry
Announcements of Israeli Change of Policy
Unfounded in Reality
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
by the
http://www.righttoenter.ps/
Despite assurances relayed by American and European
diplomats, foreign passport holders trying to join their
families in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory
(oPt), including Bethlehem, for the holidays are being
denied entry and expelled by Israel.
On Friday the 15th edition of the English newspaper,
Palestine Times, reported that a senior American diplomat
announced that Israel had annulled a previous decision
banning entry to foreign passport holders who have family
residing in the Palestinian areas and was resuming its
earlier practice of issuing three month renewable visas
that would allow them to visit and live together with
their families. Attempts to understand from US officials
more details surrounding this announcement
have been unsuccessful, to date.
In stark contrast to that announcement, at least three
foreign nationals attempting to join their families in
the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory were expelled
last week.
1)Kamal, an eighteen-year old US college student who had
come to visit his grandfather and family in Ramallah over
the holidays was denied entry at Ben Gurion airport on
Saturday December 16th.
2)Another Palestinian American from Cleveland, Ohio,
Linda Ali Mahmmud, who is deaf and dumb like her brother
Shukri, had traveled in the hopes of spending the
holidays with her cancer stricken aunt but was denied
entry at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday December 14th,
allegedly because Shukri had overstayed his permit.
Shukri had requested a routine permit renewal in October,
however, the Israeli Ministry of Interior liaison at the
Israeli Civil Administration suddenly stopped processing
renewals for foreigners married to Palestinian ID-holders
and refuses to accept Shukris application.
3)Abdullah, a German national, who works for the
International Peace & Cooperation Center in
Jerusalem, had hopes of reuniting with his wife, who
carries a Palestinian ID and their newborn child
following statements made last week by European diplomats
regarding Israels policy change. He was denied entry for
the fourth time at the Allenby Bridge on Wednesday the
20th of December.
Arbitrary denials of entry and expulsions have not
stopped. No transparent rules or mechanisms are in place
so far. Palestinian families, vital service providers and
businesses remain vulnerable to
arbitrary denial of entry and residency. This is
especially hard to accept at a time of major Christian
and Muslim traditional festivities when families want to
be together more then ever, said Anita Abdullah speaking
for the Campaign for the Right of Entry to the oPt .
The U.S. government estimates that there are about 35,000
Palestinian Americans living in the West Bank at any one
time, and an additional 10,000 Palestinians with other
foreign passports. All these people and their families
remain separated or at risk, and Palestinian educational
and social service institutions, humanitarian agencies
and businesses remain vulnerable to the loss of critical
personnel, until applications for entry and residency in
the oPt are decided in accordance with a clear,
transparent and internationally lawful policy.
Contact: Basil Ayish Coordinator, Media Committee
(c) +970-(0)59-817-3953 (email) info@righttoenter.ps
| Since 2001, Israel has even frozen the family
unification process and barred Palestinians who
are citizens of Arab countries (particularly
Jordan and Egypt) from coming to visit. Until 2006, Palestinians with Western citizenship (Europeans and Americans) were able to avoid this comprehensive policy. In the 1990s, they were considered a welcome population (investors, businessmen, academics working in international organizations such as the World Bank). Even if most of them did not get permanent residency, Israel permitted them to live here and visit regularly. This was also the case with Western spouses of Palestinian residents. Until someone in the political echelons decided that this `positive discrimination` (as opposed to citizens of Jordan and Egypt) was intolerable. And from the start of 2006 their entry has been blocked. It is not clear who the decision-maker is. The coordinator of government activities in the territories told Western diplomats it was the Interior Ministry that made the decision. Interior Ministry officials say it was a joint decision with the Defense Ministry. Be that as it may, whoever made the decision did not take into account that this was a blow to the strongest circles among the Palestinians - those who speak English, have access to the U.S. State Department, to important journalists, and to the Israeli and international business worlds. They found a way to get together and protest, unlike the tens of thousands of women who have Jordanian citizenship and hide in fear in the West Bank because Israel does not recognize their right to live with their husbands and children. The change of policy toward Palestinians with Western citizenship was brought to the attention of MK Ephraim Sneh even before he became deputy defense minister. Already then, Sneh was of the opinion that there was no point in changing the policy and that doing so would be harmful to Israel`s interests. In a conversation with Haaretz, he sounded sincere in promising that this policy toward the Americans and Europeans had been canceled and that his bureau was working on new regulations that would `make things simpler rather than making them more complicated, and would alleviate rather than aggravate` the situation. (However, it was possible to understand from this that the regulations would not legalize the stay of thousands, particularly adults and children who remained even though their visas were no longer valid). But the joy is premature: During the past two weeks, officials continued to prevent the entry even of those who are married and have children here and those who came on a visit. Are these merely `left-overs of the previous situation,` as Sneh put it, or does it testify also to the fact that Sneh is not the sole decision-maker, as was evident with his position on removing the roadblocks? On the Israeli scene, army commanders (some of them settlers) act together with politicians, jurists and academics who are terrified of the demographic balance. The Green Line does not exist for them. They thought up the Citizenship Law, which crassly expanded the discrimination against Israeli Arabs and intervenes in their right to have a family life. Amira Hass, Ha'aretz |
Anarchists Against the Wall block Central Tel Aviv
Israeli activists have blocked central Tel Aviv with
razor wire from the Apartheid Wall. The activists
stretched the razor wire across Basel Street with a sign
from the Wall that reads in Arabic, Hebrew and English:
Mortal Danger-Military Zone. Any person who passes or
damages the fence endangers his life.
The twenty activists from Anarchists Against the Wall,
who attend the weekly Friday demonstrations against the
Apartheid Wall in Bilin, set up the blockade at around
2pm and started handing out flyers to passers by
explaining the action.
The action was taken to protest the Apartheid Wall being
built through the West Bank, as well as severe travel
restrictions on Palestinians. The leaflets remind
Israelis that they bear responsibility for the suffering
of Palestinians as a result of their governments
apartheid policies.
For details contact Yonaton Pollack: 0546327736
Who We AreAnarchists Against the Wall (AATW) is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. The group works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint non violent struggle against the occupation. Since its formation, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation generally, all over the West Bank. All of AATW's work in Palestine is coordinated through villages' local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led. Why We ResistIt is the duty of Israeli citizens to resist immoral policies and actions carried out in out name. We believe that it is possible to do more than demonstrate inside Israel or participate in humanitarian relief actions. Israeli apartheid and occupation isn't going to end by itself - it will end when it becomes ungovernable and unmanageable. It is time to physically oppose the bulldozers, the army and the occupation. A Brief HistoryIn April 2003, three years into the Second Intifada, a small group of mostly anarchist Israeli activists, already doing various political work in the Occupied Territories formed Anarchists Against the Wall. The group was established around the formation of a protest tent in the village of Mas’ha, where the wall was nearing and would leave 96% of the village's land on the "Israeli" side. The camp, formed by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists was composed of two tents on the village's land which was slated for confiscation. A constant presence of Palestinian, Israelis and internationals remained for four months. During which, the camp became a center for information dissemination and a base for direct-democracy decision-making. A number of wall related direct actions were planned and prepared at the camp – such as the July 28, 2003 direct action in the Village of Anin. In that action Palestinians, international and Israeli activists managed to force open a gate in the wall in spite of being attacked by the army (See Haaretz article ). Late in August of 2003, with the wall around Mas'ha nearly completed, the camp moved to the yard of a house in which was slated for demolition. Following two days of blocking the bulldozers and mass arrests, the yard was demolished and the camp ended, but the spirit of resistance it symbolized was not demolished. In 2004, the village of Budrus began its struggles against the wall and AATW joined their daily demonstrations. Through its persistence in community mobilization, struggle and popular resistance, the village of Budrus was able to achieve significant victories. Without appealing to the Israeli courts, utilizing only popular resistance, the village succeeded to push the path of wall almost completely off its land. Budrus' success inspired many other villages to build a popular resistance, which is perhaps an even greater success. For a good part of the year, almost every village to which the construction of the wall reached rose up against it. AATW joined every village that called for its participation. More recently our actions have been centered in and around the village of Bil'in, northwest of Ramallah, where most of the village's agricultural land is to be effectively confiscated by the wall and an expanding settlement. Our Role in the StruggleThe mere presence of Israelis at Palestinian civilian actions offers some degree of protection for against army violence. The Israeli army’s code of conduct is significantly different when Israelis are present and violence, while still severe, is significantly lower. Even though many Israeli activists have been wounded at the demonstrations, some of them seriously, it is the Palestinians who have paid the highest toll. To date, 10 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed in demonstrations against the wall and thousands have been wounded. The army and the Israeli government try to put an end to Palestinian popular resistance using every form of repression, and to prevent Israeli activists from joining this struggle. Under the occupation's law it is possible to indict people for simply participating in a demonstration. In the course of the last several years, AATW activists have been arrested hundreds of times and dozens of indictments were filed against them. The legal repression by the Israeli authorities is just another front for the Israeli authorities to try and crack down on resistance. www.awalls.org/about_aatw |
Villagers Unite Against Apartheid Road
by Sam, December 23rd
This afternoon over 200 Palestinian, Israeli and
international activists participated in a protest against
the proposed new settler-only, apartheid road which will
run from the Gush Etzion settlement block to the south
and illegally annex Palestinian farmland, affect homes
and destroy significant heritage sites including a
cemetery in the Halhul and Beit Ommar villages near
Hebron in the West Bank. 800 dunums of agricultural land
from Beit Ommar and 240 dunums from Halhul is being
confiscated for the construction of this road, and four
large greenhouses belonging to the agricultural college
will be demolished. Part of the road will form a viaduct
over the existing route 60 .
Dec.23rd. 2006:
Several jeeps, a hummer and an APC invaded Hizbe Al Qadim
Street in Ramallah Tahta around midnight and demanded
entry into a family home by banging with rifle butts on
the front door. Forced with complying or having their
front door blown open, the family opened and several
soldiers were seen entering with large bags. Once inside
the soldiers imprisoned the family in one room,
blindfolded the son and started interrogating him about
his political affiliations as well as banging his head
against the door. Soldiers also damaged the walls with
rifle butts.
Whilst this was happening other military vehicles
continuously shone their searchlights on the windows of
neighbouring houses, focusing particularly on one flat.
After around an hour the military vehicles left with the
soldiers still in the house. Intermittent shooting
including automatic gunfire was heard and about an hour
later the IOF returned to pick up the occupying soldiers.
No one was kidnapped. In the morning some neighbours
identified blood on the walls. This event doesnt seem to
have received any local media coverage, as scenes like
these are played out several times nightly across the
West Bank.
BBC World Service Interview with Mary
Baxter
Mary: On this occasion some children who were going up at
the very top of Tel Rumeida were being stopped from going
home from school. For some reason at the top of the hill
on private Palestinian land there were a whole lot of
settlers having a picnic, a lot of them children. They
were being guarded by a number of soldiers. The
Palestinian children who were forced to use that way
because they are not allowed to go up the street past the
Tel Rumeida settlement, and have been told by the army
that is the way theyre to go, were not being allowed past
to their homes. Now this is against the Israeli law. They
rang me because Ive been there so long and understand the
situation and the law to some extent although Im not a
lawyer. The officers are not very keen to talk to me,
they expect me to respond to barked orders as though I
was some sort of a dog at times but they will not discuss
anything with me.
Interviewer: So you protested, you tried time after time
to get some official response to what you saw as a breach
of Israeli law by stopping these children. What happened
eventually?
Mary: The police came. Now the police over the telephone
to someone else had already admitted that it was their
job to protect the Palestinian children but the police
had not come to do so, so I told the police that they
were breaking Israeli law if they did not help these
Palestinian children get home. They refused to do that.
Instead they said I must get in their jeep and they would
take me to the police station and when I protested they
said they would take me to the police station and come
back to look after the Palestinian children but they did
not go back and help out in this situation at all, they
stayed at the police station.
Interviewer: Mary, you are 75. Why would you, a widower
of a former Anglican priest, want to put yourself through
this, why would you want to be in that conflict zone.?
Mary: I think its a call from God, but in Australia we
dont talk about God much, but thats what I think it is.
The thing that really keeps me there is that Palestinians
tell me time and time again that my
being there makes a difference to their lives. I do take
risks and I go further with the children than either the
army or the settlers want me to go.
Interviewer: Have settlers ever attacked you?
Mary: O yes, lots of times. They attack me outside my
house. I dont have to go up near their settlement to be
attacked.
Interviewer: And what kind of attack?
Mary: Ive been knocked over when Ive been trying to
protect children. Just on the 18th November three
different settler women punched me when I was trying to
stand between them and Palestinian
children.
Interviewer: Can you ever get any sense from those
settlers who are so angry with you, why they think that
there shouldnt be Palestinians there?
Mary: No, no, what they do if they talk at all rather
than scream, is to rant at you. The men rant, very often
with a finger right in my face, that I'm "not
objective" but they are free to attack Palestinian
children and they are somehow "objective." It
just makes absolutely no sense.
The
Hamas factor
Robert Malley and Henry Siegman - International Herald
Tribune - "There is an alternative, and though it,
too, is uncertain, it is far less risky or bloody, and
hardly has been given a chance. Hamas wants to govern
effectively — that is, without a crippling
international siege and Israeli military operations.
Although it is not willing to formally renounce violence,
it is prepared to abide by a comprehensive cease- fire,
and has proved its ability to implement it when
U.S.
Scolds Israel on Plan for West Bank Settlement
Helene Cooper - New York Times - "" In a rare
public rebuke to Israel, the Bush administration said
Wednesday that an Israeli plan to construct a Jewish
settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time
in 10 years could violate the terms of an American-backed
peace proposal."TOI Billboard
Twenty Israeli military vehicles stormed Umm Salamuna
Village south of Bethlehem to protect four military
bulldozers. The bulldozers were massive and there to
bulldoze Palestinian land for Wall construction. What
they needed protecting from was the nonviolent
demonstration that farmers and residents began in order
to save their land.
Hundreds of farmers rushed to the area, with people
coming from surrounding villages to advocate for the
citizens of Umm Salamuna in defending the land.
Village resident Mohammad Brijeh alerted the local media
to what was happening at 11:00 am on Tuesday. Quickly
confrontations began as the people refused to allow
Israeli forces to destroy the Palestinian land. Fist
fights and scrambling, rifle butts and fire were the
Israeli responses to the farmers.
Six Palestinians were injured, including 70 year old
farmer Mousa Mohammad. Israeli soldiers beat him in the
head with clubs. He was wrested away by fellow
demonstrators and rushed to a neighboring village`s
medical center for treatment. Twenty seven year old Amer
has bruises all over his body and internal injuries due
to a violent beating with clubs and rifle butts.
President of the Umm Salamuna Village Council, Mahmoud
Rashid, said that the Israelis intend to overtake 700
dunams of this area for the Wall. `The land is planted
with trees, grapevines and olives, which is all for the
families of the village, with a population of about 1,000
people.”
The Village Council President reiterated a sentiment
becoming more common in international, and even in some
Israeli, discourse. “Israeli forces aim to
confiscate more Palestinian land with this Wall. Their
claim that it has anything to do with security reasons is
false.”
TOI-Billboard current
issue http://toibillboard.info/index.htm
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY - DR. ROWAN WILLIAMS
"The wall which we walked through a little while ago
is a sign not simply of a sign of a passing problem in
the politics of one region; it is sign of some of the
things that are most deeply wrong in the human heart
itself. That terrible fear of the other and the stranger
which keeps all of us in one another kind of prison.
In one of the hymns which we sing in English during the
Advent season we sing about Jesus Christ as the One who
comes the prison bars to break. And it is our prayer and
our hope for all of you that the prison of poverty and
disadvantage, and the prison of fear and anxiety will
alike be broken. We are here on pilgrimage because we
trust that 2000 years ago an event took place here which
assured us that these prisons could be broken, broken by
the act of a God in whose sight all are equally precious:
Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Christian and Moslem. A God
for whom all lives are so equally precious that the death
of any one is an affront to all. That is why we are here.
We are not here to visit an ancient and interesting site.
We are not here to visit a museum and we are not here to
visit a theme park. We are here to visit a place and
people whose very existence speaks of the freedom of God
to set human beings free That is a truth which remains
day after day, year after year, millennium after
millennium. It is that good news that has driven us here.
It is that good news which has teaches us not to despair
even in the terrible circumstances in which so many of
you now live."
Israel's separation wall/barrier inside
the West Bank confiscates Palestinian land and separates
Palestinian communities. Dwarfing the Berlin Wall, it
serves not solely security, but reaches deep into the
West Bank to encompass major illegal Jewish settlements.
Palestinians in the West Bank are increasingly penned
into ghettoes that resemble the Bantustans of apartheid
South Africa.
Settlers
are continuing to place mobile homes and trailers in West
Bank
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated
Press
Settlers are continuing to place mobile
homes and trailers in West Bank outposts and settlements,
without legal permits. Civil Administration reports show
that since the start of the second Lebanon war in July,
some 200 mobile homes have been placed. This is a
substantial increase over the few dozen trailers placed
in the first half of the year.
Both the Israel Defefense Forces' office in charge of the
West Bank and the settlement watchdog group Peace Now
disputed the claims.
Civil Administration spokesman Shlomo Dror said
"there were attempts to transfer trailers, but
except for one or two we managed to stop it."
Dror Etkes, who monitors settlement activity for Peace
Now, said he was "surprised" by the report, and
wasn't aware of any large
movement of trailers over the past six months.
"This doesn't match what I know about what's been
going on in the West Bank in recent months," Etkes
said.
Despite declarations by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and
Defense Minister Amir Peretz, there has been apparently
no progress toward dismantling outposts.
Since the beginning of the month, nearly 90 trailers were
placed illegally in the West Bank. A Defense Ministry
aerial survey found new mobile homes in illegal outposts
such as Givat Assaf, near Beit El, and Amona, near Ofra.
Some of the new mobile homes were also placed in veteran
settlements.
The Yesha Council of settlements says the number is lower
than the 200 stated by the Civil Administration and that
most of the buildings spotted in the latest aerial survey
were simply never identified before.
The red tape and foot dragging in dismantling outposts is
creating a legal tangle as demolition orders expire,
which will further delay the eventual resumption of
evacuation procedures.
Last
update - 09:32 31/12/2006
Making the law a
laughingstock
By Haaretz Editorial
Virtually not a week goes by without a new revelation,
each more sensational and revolting than the previous
one, about the building spree in
In the middle of last week, it was reported that Defense
Minister Amir Peretz had authorized the repopulation of
Maskiot, an abandoned Nahal Brigade outpost. Thirty new
homes will be set up there for evacuees from Gush Katif,
in the Gaza Strip. Maskiot is one of a long list of
communities established beyond the Green Line that have
been completely untouched by the government's commitment
under the road map: to freeze all settlement activities,
including "natural growth." Two weeks ago,
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz notified Peretz that
according to data he received from the Civil
Administration, construction in the illegal outposts is
continuing, including the construction of permanent
structures. Mazuz listed 168 illegal structures that had
been identified in the settlements and outposts over the
past year.
It will soon be two years since the government decided,
in response to a report on the outposts drafted by
attorney Talia Sasson, "to keep its commitment to
dismantle unauthorized outposts set up since March
2001." As a result of this delay, the demolition
orders issued against some of the outposts are close to
expiry, a fact that will make the evacuations more
difficult, if such a day ever comes. According to last
Friday's report, the Israel Defense Forces have not
presented a detailed plan or a timetable for evacuating
the outposts. Instead, for some months now, the defense
minister has been involved in negotiations with the
leaders of the Yesha Council of settlements in an effort
to reach an agreement on the voluntary evacuation of some
outposts and the relocation of the rest to within the
boundaries of the "mother" settlements.
The agreement being formulated with the settlers is
reminiscent of the outposts agreement of October