Barak Orders Dismantling of 15 New West Bank Settlements

Embarking on a confrontation course with the influential Jewish settler movement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told settlement leaders Tuesday that more than a dozen outposts that have sprouted on the West Bank in the past year will be dismantled.

The decision to uproot 15 of 42 new settlements, some of which consist only of a trailer home or two on an isolated hilltop, had been broadly hinted at this week in comments by Barak and other top officials. It marks an unusual defeat for the settler movement, which has enjoyed the support of numerous Israeli governments.

“This decision breaks the relationship we had with the prime minister and with his government,” Yehoshua Mor-Yossef, a spokesman for the settlers’ umbrella council, said after Barak met with the group late Tuesday. “We thought he would change his mind.”

The settlers vowed to protest the decision, but it was not immediately clear whether they would physically resist the closures. If they are forcibly evacuated by police or soldiers, it will increase the political risk considerably for Barak, whose governing coalition includes settlement representatives and supporters.

Barak, who based the decision on legal grounds, was scheduled to meet today with two pro-settlement parties in the coalition, but there were no initial signs of instability in the government.

Leaders of the movement Peace Now, which had campaigned against the outposts for months, applauded the decision but said more have to go.

“This is only the first step on a long road to peace,” said Mossi Raz, the group’s executive director. “This is one of the first times that the government has uprooted settlements on the West Bank, but many more need to come out.”

Located on strategic hilltops throughout the West Bank, the outposts were established during the past year, some about the time of the signing of the Wye Plantation peace agreement last October and others in the weeks before Barak’s election in May.

Many, the residents say, were inspired by then-Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon’s call to settlers after the Wye deal to “grab the hills” to establish so-called facts on the ground before the Palestinians did the same. The aim was to enable Israel to hang on to strategic points, even after a final peace accord is reached.

On Tuesday, the Palestinians, who hope to establish their own state in the West Bank within the year, said that all settlements, not only the new ones, are illegal and must be closed. The West Bank has about 160 Jewish settlements, which the United States also considers obstacles to peace.

“All settlements on occupied land are the same,” said Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian negotiator. “They are all illegal, and they are all destructive to the peace process.”

He also criticized Barak’s policy of expanding existing West Bank communities, saying all construction must be stopped. Since Barak took office in early July, the government has approved construction of nearly 2,600 houses in the settlements, a pace that exceeds that set by Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak’s right-wing predecessor.

Barak, who heads the center-left Labor Party, has said frequently that he supports Jewish settlement of much of the West Bank land captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. But in criteria announced earlier this week, Barak differentiated between long-standing settlements and some of the 42 outposts, which were set up without legal authorization.

Gadi Baltiansky, a spokesman for the prime minister, said Tuesday that 15 of the encampments will be closed, barring a successful--and he made clear, unlikely--appeal by the settlers. Sixteen others will remain in place but not be allowed to expand, he said. Three are in the process of being legalized and will receive their final permits soon; eight others are viewed as wholly legal.

“The decision relates to the prime minister’s view of the law and the rule of law,” Baltiansky said. “Now it’s clear that those that are completely illegal will be dealt with by being dismantled.”