Israel to ‘legalise’ four settler outposts in occupied West Bank

Israel plans to declare legal four unauthorised West Bank settler outposts, according to court documents lodged yesterday, days before US secretary of state John Kerry returns to the region to try to restart peace talks.

Israel has been sending mixed signals on its internationally condemned settlement policy as Mr Kerry pursues efforts to revive negotiations Palestinians quit in 2010 in anger over Israeli settlement building on occupied land they seek for a state.

In a reply to a supreme court petition by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the government said it had taken steps in recent weeks to authorise retroactively four West Bank outposts built without official permission.

“The intention to legalise outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry’s new process and is blatant reassurance to settler interests,” Peace Now said. A spokesman for prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu declined to comment on the government’s response to the court.

Most the world deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 government-authorised settlements and dozens of outposts built by settlers without permission.

Last week, Peace Now and Israeli media reports said Mr Netanyahu had been quietly curbing some settlement activity by freezing tenders for new housing projects, in an apparent effort to help the US drive to renew peace talks.

Continued construction
But Peace Now said at the time construction already under way was continuing, and Israel announced last week it had given preliminary approval for 300 new homes in Beit El.

Mr Kerry, due to meet Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas separately next week, has said he believes “the parties are serious” about restarting talks.

The main issues include borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, the future of Jewish settlements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was also captured from Jordan in 1967. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in those areas. – (Reuters)