Israel seeks to legalise settler homes on Palestinian land

Netanyahu tries to delay demolitions of illegal settlements after heavy pressure from the settler lobby and right-wing activists.

TEL AVIV // Israel is to set up a panel to find ways to legitimise settler homes built illegally on private Palestinian land.

The prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "decided to form a committee to examine policy tools and principles of action, relating to construction with unregulated status" in the West Bank, his office said yesterday.

A government official insisted the committee would merely "ascertain the legal status" of homes built on land whose ownership is being disputed in petitions before the Israeli supreme court.

But anti-settlement activists say the move is an attempt to delay further demolition of illegal settlements.

The decision to set up the panel was taken after heavy pressure from the settler lobby and right-wing activists after the demolition in early September of three structures in the Migron outpost near Ramallah.

Further demolitions in another four outposts are expected to take place by the end of the year.

The decision to demolish Migron and other outposts on private Palestinian land was taken in February at a meeting between Mr Netanyahu, three ministers and the attorney general. They agreed to raze the outposts while working to retroactively legalise any illegal construction on state land.

The issue of construction on private Palestinian land has been the subject of lengthy court battles. In August the supreme court ordered the government to demolish Migron by the end of March 2012.

Dror Etkes, a veteran activist who monitors settlement activity, said: "Any move to legalise homes built on private Palestinian land would turn Israel into an official apartheid state."

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said the committee was another Israeli attempt at "lending a guise of legality to the settlement project" and meant the government "will now become an active accomplice in the private land theft and dispossession of Palestinians".

The initiative comes at a diplomatically sensitive time for Israel. Mr Netanyahu is trying to rally international support against the Palestinian Authority's bid for UN recognition of their independent statehood.

But with the entire settlement enterprise illegal under international law, Israel stands to attract a torrent of condemnation should it legalise any settler homes built on private Palestinian land.

Such a move would be a blow to efforts to restart peace talks and is also likely to further anger Palestinian leaders, who are facing pressure from the Middle East Quartet of international mediators, made up of the US, European Union, UN and Russia, to meet the Israeli leadership in the coming days.

Yesterday Palestinians reacted with fury to the plan. Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, said: "It would be a setback and another sign that Netanyahu and the Israeli government are more committed to determining the future of the territories by settlement activities rather than by negotiations."

The condemnation of the Israeli move to set up the committee highlights the differences in the way the settlements are viewed by Israel and the international community.

Most western countries consider all settlements to be illegal. Israel, however, views more than 120 settlements in the West Bank as legal while it deems dozens of smaller wildcat outposts as unauthorised by the government. According to activists, about 70 of an estimated 100 such outposts were built on Palestinian land.

Despite their official illegal status, many of the outposts still receive state funding for infrastructure such as roads, schools and electricity services as well as protection from the Israeli military.

Activists say that any initiative to legalise homes built on private Palestinian land would have wider implications since at least a third of Israel's entire settlement enterprise in the West Bank - including settlements both authorised or unauthorised by Israel - sits on land that is privately owned by Palestinians.

Activists say the existence of outposts has helped Israel to deflect international condemnation against its settlement activities by showing that it can crack down on settlers. They say that for settlers, outposts, often composed of just a few families living in caravans, shift both domestic and international attention away from their expansion of much larger settlements.

* Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse