Haaretz - 'No oversight in sight'

[Englander]

By Akiva Elder

The method is not original. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knows it well from his heroic days in the Paratroops: Before the battalion launches an attack on an important target, the commander sends a squad of soldiers to a nearby hill, to divert the enemy's attention from the real target. When Dov Weissglas "reveals" that after the evacuation of the Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria the government will turn its attention to dealing with the outposts, who notices that the senior adviser has announced, in the very same lecture, that the negotiations on the final status agreement will not begin before Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has arrested the last of the terrorists. In other words, as long as Sharon is in power, Abu Mazen can forget about negotiations.

Additional confirmation that the formaldehyde approach is not dead can be found in the report by the deputy director general of the Slovene Foreign Ministry at a conference of supporters of the Geneva Accord that was held in Brussels at the end of May. The senior official had recently accompanied her director general on his visit to Israel. She told the audience at the conference that her boss had asked Shalom Turgeman, Sharon's diplomatic adviser, how the prime minister envisioned the situation between Israel and the Palestinians 25 years from now. The adviser's reply, said the deputy director general, shocked her: "The same as today," replied Turgeman, "only with a fence." (According to the Prime Minister's Bureau, Turgeman was expressing his opinion, which is in accord with that of the prime minister, whereby progress according to the road map will be possible only after the disarming of the terror organizations and the cessation of the incitement, and that this principle is not limited in time.)

In fact, what Weissglas had to say about the outposts also diverts people's attention from far more important facts that are evolving at present on the ground. In an appendix to her document on the illegal outposts, Talia Sasson estimates the number of people living in the outposts that Israel has made a commitment to evacuating (those that were established after March, 2001) at no more than 600 (including children). This is peanuts as compared to the "legal" construction in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Who remembers that in adopting the road map Israel undertook to freeze "all settlement activity" (including natural growth of settlements)? Who notices that in 2004, tenders were published for the construction of 962 housing units throughout the West Bank? That is, Sharon's public commitment to freeze the construction went in one ear and out the other of the previous housing minister, Effi Eitam.

In the best case, the prime minister does not know his ministers are implementing policies of their own. The worst case can be learned from Sharon's biography. A summary report by Peace Now for last year presents a list of the six largest building sites in the settlements, in each of which hundreds of housing units are going up (Ma'aleh Adumim, Betar Illit, Modi'in Illit, Alfei Menashe, Adam and Har Gilo). In addition, it details a list of medium-sized and small building sites in 26 settlements.

At 15 additional sites in more or less veteran settlements, the ground is being prepared for new construction, or there is land that has already been prepared. As if this were not enough, in 21 settlements the sites at which the construction work is going on are located outside the built-up area of the existing settlement. This deviation was documented not only in the "settlement blocs" or in settlements close to the Green Line (for example Ma'aleh Adumim, Betar Illit, Alfei Menashe and Oranit). The overflow beyond the outer limit was also observed at settlements in the depths of the West Bank (among them Brakha, Ma'aleh Mikhmash, Ma'on, Carmel, Eli, Ofra and Mitzpeh Yeriho). In addition, the paving of two new roads is continuing (Jerusalem-Nokdim and Nili-Ofarim) as well as the expansion of the trans-Samaria road and the Jerusalem-Jericho road.

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