Israel legalizes 3 West Bank settler outposts, seeks to defer demolition of 4th

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Israel legalized three unsanctioned West Bank settler outposts and was trying to save another on Tuesday, infuriating the Palestinians as the chief American Mideast envoy was in the region laboring to revive peace efforts.

The decision fueled suspicions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition would try to legalize as many rogue settlement sites as possible to cement Israel’s hold on occupied land the Palestinians claim for a state.

Netanyahu faces stiff pressure from pro-settler hardliners within his own coalition to fend off legal challenges to the unauthorized construction. Some hardliners have even warned that the coalition, which until now has been remarkably stable, could unravel over the issue.

Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as the core of their hoped-for state, and see all Israeli settlement as illegal encroachment on those lands. They have refused to restart peace talks until construction halts.

“We call upon the Israeli government to immediately stop all unilateral acts,” said senior Palestinian official Nabil Abu Rdeneh. “Netanyahu is pushing things into deadlock once again.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-legalizes-3-west-bank-settler-outposts-seeks-to-defer-demolition-of-4th/2012/04/24/gIQAlBNAeT_story.html

[oberliner]

1. Talia Sasson

She is the author of the government report on West Bank outposts from 2005 that is referenced in this article.

Here's a piece she wrote for Peace Now in 2010:

http://peacenow.org/entries/time_to_end_the_silence

[oberliner]

2. Story behind one of these outposts: Rehalim

It was created as a women-only settlement in protest for the murder of Rachel Drouk (Rehalim being the plural form of Rachel in Hebrew).

She was killed by a group of Palestinians who had attacked a bus she was riding to a protest (she was a settler protesting the 1991 peace negotiations). She and the driver of the bus were killed in the attack.

After Rachel's funeral, a group of about 25 women went to the site where the killing took place (a barren hillside), set up tents, and stayed the night. After the week that they intended to stay there passed by, they decided not to leave and ended up creating the settlement - naming it for Rachel Drouk and Rachel Weiss, another Israeli woman who was killed along with her three children in an earlier attack by Palestinians on another bus in 1988.

It was a unique "protest settlement" founded exclusively by women (all of whom were married with children and Orthodox). The husbands were not involved in the decision. Other women and girls would join them in shifts to spend time with these women and listen to their story. They wrote something early on in the process they called "The Feminist Manifesto" calling for women to support their vigil.

If anyone wants to know more of this story, please feel free to send me a message.

[azurnoir]

5. well that is a touching story and if you have more to share why not post it publicly?

and perhaps Palestinian women should set up settlements everywhere a Palestinian civilian has died in Israel and the West Bank

[oberliner]

7. Fair use

I don't think I can post much more - but if people want to learn about it, they can message me. Yourself included.

[azurnoir]

11. how would it be fair use unless you copied what was in your post

concerning this settlement from somewhere else which does not appear to be the case

[oberliner]

12. I paraphrased the information from a book

I tried to avoid verbatim transcription to not create any copyright violations, but I think anything longer might cross the line.

[Ken Burch]

8. The fact that it was started as an all-woman settlement

doesn't make it any more acceptable, and the death of Rachel, tragic as that was, doesn't justify further land theft.

A lot of Palestinian women, and children, have died in this conflict. It's not as if the only innocent victims in the conflict were Israeli.

[oberliner]

13. No comment on acceptability

Just found the story to be intriguing.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Died while protesting peace negotiations.

Touching story, if not a little ironic.

[oberliner]

14. Sad on many levels

Many have died in the name of peace, others in the name of war.

[Jefferson23]

3. Amazing, Bibi has the gall to question Sasson's objectivity!

snip* Despite the claim, two of the enclaves, Bruchin and Rehalim, were identified as unauthorized outposts in a 2005 government report. The Netanyahu government has reopened that report, saying the objectivity of its author, then-state prosecutor Talia Sasson, is now in question because she later joined an anti-settlement political party.

She joined an anti-settlement political party, damn her, the traitor.

[Ken Burch]

4. What part of "you CAN'T keep expanding settlements and still claim

to want peace" does the Israeli government not get?

There was no justification for the settlement project in 1973-there's none now. Any chance of a two-state solution being accepted by Palestinians HINGES on Israel accepting that all of the West Bank is Palestine. The Palestinian state cannot survive if it's forced to be any smaller than that, and none of the so-called "land swaps" could possibly be worth anything.

[Scurrilous]

6. UN chief 'deeply troubled' by new West Bank outposts

Ban Ki-moon comments on Israel's decision to grant legal status to Bruchin, Sansana and Rechalim outposts, describing activity as 'illegal'.

<snip>

"UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that he was "deeply troubled" by Israel's decision to grant legal status to three settlement outposts in the West Bank, describing the activity as illegal under international law.

Referring to three outposts - Bruchin, Sansana and Rechalim, Ban's office said in a statement that the "Secretary-General is deeply troubled by the decision of the Government of Israel to formally approve three outposts in the West Bank."

"The Secretary-General reiterates that all settlement activity is illegal under international law. It runs contrary to Israel's obligations under the Road Map and repeated Quartet calls for the parties to refrain from provocations," it said.

The United States also said it was "concerned by the reports" of Israel's decision. "We don't think this is helpful to the [peace] process, and we don't accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/un-chief-deeply-troubled-by-new-west-bank-outposts-1.426382

[oberliner]

9. Is the Road Map still in effect?

It seems to have gone into mothballs.

[Scurrilous]

15. Ashton calls on Israel to 'reverse' outpost decision

EU foreign policy chief says 'extremely concerned' about legalization of Sansana, Rachalim and Bruchin

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4221046,00.html

<snip>

"The European Union called on Israel on Wednesday to reverse its decision to legalize three settler outposts in the West Bank.

"I am extremely concerned about the decision of the Israeli authorities regarding the status of the settlements of Sansana, Rachalim and Bruchin in the occupied Palestinian territory," said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

"I call upon them to reverse this decision," she said in a statement."

<snip>

"The EU has repeatedly called on Israel to end all settlement activity. Settlements are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace and threaten the viability of a two-state solution," Ashton said."