Lots of interesting international stories today-
Day After Report, Author Says Israeli Democracy Is at Risk
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: March 9, 2005
JERUSALEM, March 9 - The author of a damning report about the systematic use of Israeli government money to finance illegal settlement outposts said today that the pattern of law-breaking she uncovered presents a threat to the Israeli democracy, which is inseparable from the rule of law.
"Preserving Israel as a democratic state requires urgent actions to change" the "continual, blunt and institutional breach of law, executed by the institutions of the state themselves," said the investigator, Talia Sasson, in a report commissioned by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, under pressure from Washington.
"We can no longer compromise with such actions," she said, addressing Mr. Sharon, "and it appears to be in your hands to act."
The report, which was finished a month ago and withheld until now, found widespread complicity and collusion among government officials in successive Israeli governments to spend state money to build unauthorized and illegal outposts in contravention to Israel's stated policy and laws.
Mr. Sharon has said he will bring Ms. Sasson's report to the regular weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. His aides insisted today that while Mr. Sharon may be considered the godfather of settlement activity in Israel, the prime minister "wants to use this report as a catalyst to mark the beginning of different patterns of behavior by the Israeli bureaucracy."
Ms. Sasson recommended today that the attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, consider criminal investigations of a number of those involved in the organized law-breaking, in particular the settlements adviser to the Ministry of Defense, Ron Shechner.
She said that Mr. Shechner had exceeded his authority by permitting the construction of illegal outposts in the West Bank and their connection to the water and electricity grid without checking with the defense minister and that he had acted as an agent of the settlers, not of the ministry. The justification for such a job should be questioned, Ms. Sasson said, and any future adviser should be independent.
Since she began work last June, Ms. Sasson said, she has been repeatedly denied requested information by various ministries. She found at least 105 outposts built illegally without government authorization since the mid-1990's, but said she was convinced that there were more. Of the 105 she found, at least 15 outposts have been built entirely on land privately owned by Palestinians and "are totally illegal and must be removed," she said. At least seven outposts are on disputed land, 26 are on land in the West Bank claimed by the Israeli state and an additional 39 are on parcels of land that include private Palestinian property.
There are at least six illegal outposts where all legal appeals have been exhausted months ago, she said, but which have not been dismantled because the Ministry of Defense has not issued an order to do so.
Mr. Sharon has promised President Bush to freeze all new settlement activity and to dismantle illegal outposts erected since Mr. Sharon came into office in March 2001. There are at least 24 of those, with at least 10 other outposts whose dates are not clear, Ms. Sasson said. But Mr. Sharon has argued that while he is trying to dismantle all the Israeli settlements in Gaza, he cannot afford another battle with the settlers on the West Bank.
American officials said today that they expected Mr. Sharon "to keep his promises to the president," but it was also evident that Washington would not pressure Mr. Sharon on the issue while Gaza was in play. Still, Sharon aides said today that Mr. Sharon is likely to take some steps soon to show that he intends to implement Ms. Sasson's recommendations, possibly including the dismantling of at least the most egregious illegal outposts, one aide said.
In the past, the government has dismantled some 20 outposts, said Dror Etkes of Peace Now, but they were nearly all tiny and uninhabited, and most have been rebuilt by settlers. "There have been a lot of reports written," he said. "What matters is what happens on the ground." The main issue now, he said, is not the outposts, but the continuing expansion of existing settlements in both population and territory, which go beyond the "natural growth" Mr. Sharon says that the Bush administration has accepted.
(con't)http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/international/middleeast/09cnd-mide.html |
