Illegal outposts: The rot starts at the top

Funds transfered by government ministries were used by West Bank council heads to finance illegal settlement activity

Attorney Talia Sasson, who is in the process of completing her report on settlers' outposts in the West Bank, has the reputation of being thorough and professional. It is likely, therefore, that she has came across a copy of a sharp letter sent in the Spring of 1997 by then-attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein to chief military prosecutor Brigadier-General Uri Shoham and Central Command commander Uzi Dayan.

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Every illegal outpost started with a large truck hauling a trailer through the West Bank. An examination of the squatters' modus operandi must have led Sasson to the key question: Who, over the years, has instructed the IDF officers, who have complete control of the area, to permit hundreds of semi-trailer trucks to arrive unhindered at their destinations.

In August 1999 the IDF Civil Administration's legal adviser, Shlomo Politis, wrote to then-Central Command chief Moshe Ya'alon. Politis said that in the case of moving trailers to illegal outposts, one hand of the authorities did not know what the other was doing. He told Ya'alon, the commander in charge of the West Bank, of cases in which settlers who received demolition orders for illegal structures had also received permits to move the mobile structures to the same outposts. The permits were signed by the Civil Administration officer in charge of infrastructure.


Haaretz

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

Wonder how many are "just following orders".

that's a keeper.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/549486.html

<snip>

"A report to be submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday blasts "blatant violations of the law" regulating the funding of unauthorized West Bank outposts, some of them financed by government monies, according to a copy leaked by justice sources.

The text, released by Reuters, claims that "the process of outpost expansion is profoundly under way."

The Sasson Report, compiled by former chief state prosecutor Talia Sasson detailed involvement by the Housing Ministry, the Jewish Agency and the Israel Defense Forces in providing funds and infrastructure needed to erect unauthorized outposts, some on Palestinian private property.

"The state of Israel finances at least some of these outposts," the report said.

A government official said there would be no comment on the report until Sharon had read it."

Backed by serious evidence.

That these doings are illegal by even Israeli law has been long obvious; that they are illegal by international law is now clear. That they are a serious obstacle to achieving and sustaining any peaceful resolution to this conflict ought to be obvious to all, whichever side of this debate they advocate for.

"A nation is a group of people united by a mistaken view of history, and hatred for their neighbors."

This woman seems intent on shaking things up.
The rules don't work unless they work for everybody.

Mr. Bierce would be pleased with your remembrance his work.

This is nice:

As a rule, all heroism is due to a lack of reflection, and thus it is necessary to maintain a mass of imbeciles. If they once understand themselves the ruling men will be lost.