Israeli Ministries Aid Unauthorized Outposts, Report Says

A report commissioned by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accused various Israeli agencies on Tuesday of complicity in the building of unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank.

The outposts, dozens of tiny “satellite” communities meant to expand the reach of existing settlements, are supposed to have been removed under the U.S.-supported peace plan known as the “road map.”

But the Sharon government has lagged in doing so, with the tacit understanding of the Bush administration.

Coinciding with the report’s release, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of unnecessarily delaying promised measures such as a troop pullback from West Bank population centers.

Abbas, addressing Palestinian lawmakers, said such foot-dragging “gives a pretext to those who are plotting to sabotage the peace process.”

The Palestinian president met Tuesday night with Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in the highest-level talks by the two sides since a Feb. 25 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed five Israelis. The exiled leadership of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Mofaz and Abbas were said to be finalizing details of the Israeli withdrawal from five West Bank cities, which was pledged by Sharon at a summit in Egypt early last month. The biblical town of Jericho and the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm are first on the list, but no firm date was set for the troop pullback.

Settlement outposts have long been a sore point between the two sides. Though often little more than a cluster of trailers and water towers clinging to bare hillsides, the outposts stake a symbolic claim to land the Palestinians want for their future state.

The long-awaited report by Talia Sasson, a former state prosecutor, said Israel’s housing ministry, immigration agency and military provided money, logistical support and infrastructure for more than 100 unauthorized outposts, which are usually erected by militant settlers.

“It appears that blatant violations of the law have become institutional and institutionalized ... and that no enforcement of the law is seriously intended,” said the report, which was presented to Sharon on Tuesday. Excerpts appeared in editions of the daily newspaper Maariv.

Army troops have occasionally been deployed to remove such outposts, usually sparking brawls with radical young settlers, but structures almost always reappear within days. Many Israelis regard the scenes of settlers wrestling with and cursing at soldiers sent to evacuate them as an uneasy precursor of the government’s planned evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip this summer.

The report on the outposts came at an awkward time for Sharon, who is gearing up for a confrontation in parliament next week with opponents of the Gaza pullout. The prime minister must win passage of his annual budget before the month’s end or face the dissolution of his government, and his opponents see the vote as a last chance to derail the withdrawal.

Sharon has been reluctant to move aggressively to dismantle the outposts while trying to push through the Gaza initiative. He also has sought to dampen settlers’ anger by promising that Israel will retain large swaths of the West Bank.

The Sasson report cited such official practices as providing electricity, roads and military protection for the settlement outposts, some of them built on land owned by Palestinians.

“The state of Israel finances and supports at least some of these outposts,” the report said.

The Israeli group Peace Now said about 2,000 Israelis lived in about 100 West Bank outposts.

“We have seen the phenomenon of the outposts ‘thickening,’ with long-term construction going on,” said Dror Etkes, who has been tracking outpost development for more than two years. “In most cases, people intend to live there permanently.”

Rather than deny that the outposts had received government aid, settler leaders trumpeted the help in an apparent attempt to embarrass Sharon’s government.

“You know very well when a state doesn’t want something to happen, it doesn’t happen,” said lawmaker Zvi Hendel, a settler activist.