Israel’s Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and settler leaders reached agreement late Monday over the dismantling of 15 outposts set up 'illegally' in the West Bank in recent months, Army Radio reported Tuesday, cited by Haaretz newspaper.
It was agreed that some of the outposts would be taken down by the settlers themselves and that the remaining ones would be removed by the army.
All Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories are considered illegal under international law, so the internal Israeli debate had to do with the laws of the Jewish state.
The settlers were represented by Ze'ev Hever and Pinhas Wallerstein, the head of the Binyamin regional council.
Ben-Eliezer sparked a storm last week when he declared that the outposts would be dismantled within days, and that if necessary, force would be used.
Angry right-wing politicians said he did not have the authority to make such a decision, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the cabinet would decide the fate of the outposts.
Around the signing of the Wye Plantation agreement in October 1998, Jewish settlers established over 30 illegal outposts in the West Bank after Sharon, then foreign minister, told them to seize the hilltops “before it is too late.”
Some of these outposts were removed after Ehud Barak came to power in May 1999 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
