3 outposts in West Bank legalized
JERUSALEM — Israel announced Tuesday that it has legalized three unauthorized Jewish outposts in the West Bank, a move that Palestinians and anti-settlement activists condemned as a step toward creating the first new settlements in more than a decade.
The decision marked the latest effort by Israel’s right-wing coalition government to prevent evictions — some of them court-ordered — of Jewish settlers who have established communities without government permission in the West Bank, where Israel occupies land that Palestinians want for a future state.
Settlements are a core point of dispute in the frozen peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, who view the housing developments as Israeli land-grabbing and want construction to stop before resuming negotiations. Israel says the issue should be discussed during peace talks.
Although most foreign governments consider all settlements illegal, Israel applies that label only to about 100 so-called outposts that were built without official authorization, sometimes on private Palestinian land. Past Israeli governments have pledged to dismantle the outposts but have rarely moved to do so, and authorities have instead provided them with sewage, water and other services.
In a short statement issued Tuesday, the government said that a ministerial committee had decided to “formalize” the three outposts of Sansana, Bruchin and Rechelim, whose establishment it attributed to “previous governments.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressured to save the outposts by pro-settlement allies, some of whom have threatened to leave the governing coalition over the issue. Last month, the Israeli Supreme Court knocked back a government effort to delay the evacuation of the largest outpost, Migron, a ruling that energized efforts by conservative lawmakers to “retroactively” legalize the unauthorized settlements.