Israel Matzav

Ministers: 'Stop calling outposts illegal'

Four government ministers toured several outposts in Judea and Samaria on Monday and said that the government should stop calling the outposts 'illegal.' The four, Likud's Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon and Yuli Edelstein, Shas' Eli Yishai and Jewish Home's Daniel Herschkowitz, also accused the defense ministry of not carrying out government policy in its response to court petitions against the outposts.

"We need to eradicate the term 'illegal outposts,'" Ya'alon added. "These are communities that were established with the state's encouragement, yet the legal definition has made them illegal."

Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was also on the tour, made similar comments.

"Every community that the government established and financed is legal," he said. "We have to speak the truth: It is impossible to say this is illegal."

"Honing" this message, he added, is the best way to combat a highly critical report on the outposts prepared a few years ago by government attorney Talia Sasson.

Both ministers were responding to settler complaints that whenever leftist organizations petition the High Court against an outpost, the prosecution replies that the outpost is indeed illegal and that demolition orders have been issued against it.

"With responses like that, the court isn't left with any room to decide," noted Pinchas Wallerstein, secretary general of the Yesha Council of settlements.

The settlers argued that instead, the state should say the outposts were in the middle of the approval process and would receive final approval soon. That, they said, would deter petitioners from even going to court, lest by so doing they actually hasten the approval process.

Ya'alon said he had discussed this issue with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised that Defense Minister Ehud Barak would look into it.

Associates of Barak responded that the minister's policy is to "uphold the law," both on the ground and in responses to the High Court.

The Sasson report has been the basis for demands that Israel expel all Jews from 'illegal outposts.'

The ministers also said the government would consider allowing Jews to return to Homesh, the northern Samarian town which was destroyed, and from which Jews were expelled, at the same time that Jews were expelled from Gaza in 2005.

The ministers also visited the ruins of Homesh, one of four northern West Bank settlements evacuated (along with the entire Gaza Strip) under the 2005 disengagement. There, Ya'alon gave a brief lecture on the strategic importance of the site, from which much of Israel is visible.

The picture in the middle of this post is a view from Homesh toward Israel's Mediterranean coast. You can get more details about the picture here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:49 PM