Israel Plans to Remove Illegal West Bank Outposts by End of 2011
Israel plans to remove all West Bank settler outposts built illegally on private Palestinian land by the end of 2011, the government said today in a response to a petition brought to the country’s High Court of Justice.
The government’s policy was set out in a document presented to the court by the Justice Ministry in response to a petition brought by the Peace Now organization, which monitors settlement construction, regarding the status of six specific West Bank outposts.
“While this is significant in that it is the first time the government has committed itself to a timetable, we are skeptical it will carry this out and not find excuses to avoid doing so over the next nine months,” said Yariv Oppenheimer, a Peace Now spokesman.
Israel has built about 120 settlements in the West Bank since the late 1960s. Another 100 smaller settlements, which Israel calls outposts, were built during the past decade.
Peace Now says about 70 outposts were built all or in part on private Palestinian property. The government’s response didn’t specify the total number of illegal outposts. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had no comment beyond the document’s content.
The government said in its response that the fate of those outposts not built on private land will be “subject to future consideration.”
The United Nations says all settlements are illegal, and the International Committee of the Red Cross says they breach the Fourth Geneva Convention governing actions on occupied territory. President Barack Obama has said the settlements aren’t legitimate.
Israel says the settlements don’t fall under the convention because the territory wasn’t recognized as belonging to anyone before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isn’t occupied.
To contact the reporter on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
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