Israel still building outposts

2004-05-05 13:48

Jerusalem - Israel's Housing Ministry has funnelled nearly $6.5m to illegal settlement construction in the West Bank in the past three years, more than half of it to outposts Israel pledged to remove, the state comptroller said on Wednesday.

Under the US-backed "road map" peace plan, Israel is required to dismantle dozens of unauthorised outposts and freeze construction in older settlements. It has removed only a few outposts so far and has not stopped building in the others.

State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg wrote in an annual report that the Housing Ministry has poured money into settlement construction that had not received cabinet or defense ministry approval and in cases where land ownership was still under dispute.

The money was sent even as a branch of the Israeli military was "investing resources to track down and demolish illegal construction" in settlements and outposts, Goldberg wrote.

The housing minister is Effie Eitam, leader of the pro-settler National Religious Party. Eitam is a staunch opponent of the road map.

From January 2000 to June 2003, the Housing Ministry approved 77 contracts for construction projects in 33 West Bank areas, 18 of them unauthorised outposts, the report said.

Peace Now, an anti-settlement Israeli watchdog group, said 102 unauthorised settlement outposts were built, and 21 were removed. Others were removed but rebuilt.

Confirms everything

Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now welcomed the comptroller's report. "This confirms everything we've been saying for eight years," he said. "We are going to request a police inquiry, and we are filing an immediate police complaint against the housing minister."

The outposts - often nothing more than a trailer and an Israeli flag on a barren hilltop - are a point of contention between Israel and its closest ally, the United States.

The Palestinians see the outposts as a further encroachment on the land they want for a future state.

Settlers say the outposts are extensions of existing settlements, though some are several kilometres away.

According to the report, the Housing Ministry gave money to pave roads and provide lighting, electricity, water lines and new buildings at unauthorised outposts. In two cases, the ministry funded roads and buildings in areas where there were demolition orders by the Civil Administration, a branch of the Israeli military administering parts of the West Bank.

In its response to the report, the Housing Ministry said it is not responsible for deciding whether construction is legal. Defence Ministry officials insisted that their ministry was not involved in the issue and refused to comment.

The State Comptroller ruled the Housing Ministry's job is not only to act "as a channel for funnelling money." The ministry is responsible to the public, the report said, and must "oversee and inspect the use of its money."

- AP