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Articles on Israel Removal of West Bank Settler Outpost

Yariv Oppenheimer of the Peace Now movement said the evacuation was "just a public relations stunt" and added that "if they really want to deal with the problem of illegal outposts they should deal with the significant outposts."
Thu May 21, 2009

Reuters: "Israel removes West Bank settler outpost"

By Baz Ratner

KOKHAV HASHAHAR, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli police broke up an unauthorized settler outpost in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, bulldozing makeshift cabins, police said.

About 40 members of paramilitary border police evacuated five settler families from a hilltop camp called Maoz Esther where they were living in wooden huts with sheet metal roofs.

The camp was about 300 meters from the Jewish settlement of Kokhav Hashahar, northeast of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

About three dozen settler adults and children were in the middle of a Torah lesson when the police arrived, they said. They were allowed to finish and then left as ordered.

The evacuation was carried out a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, who urged a halt to construction of settlements in order to revive stalled peace talks.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday told Jewish settler leaders that illegal outposts had to go. A statement quoted him as saying Israel "cannot compromise over enforcing the law."

But Yariv Oppenheimer of the Peace Now movement said the evacuation was "just a public relations stunt" and added that "if they really want to deal with the problem of illegal outposts they should deal with the significant outposts."

TWO DOZEN OUTPOSTS

Half a million Jews live in the 100 "authorized" settlements built on West Bank land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war, including Arab East Jerusalem.

The World Court says they are illegal. The United States and Europe Union agree and regard them as obstacles to peace.

Israel disputes this but acknowledges at least two dozen enclaves were built in recent years without approval. Israeli leaders have pledged for years to remove them, as promised under a U.S.-backed peace "road map" that sets the goal of an Arab peace with Israel and a Palestinian state alongside it.

Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said the government wanted the outposts "taken down through a process of dialogue." He could not say how long the process might take.

But Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman denied the West Bank settlements obstruct a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

"I always hear people trying to portray Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace ... I ask, what was before 1967 when there wasn't a single Jewish settlement ... but there was no peace either," he told reporters in Tel Aviv

Palestinians say the settlements, and the "security" barrier the Israel army builds around them, mean confiscation of land. But settlers say Jews have a biblical right to the West Bank.

"We will build this again," said Maoz Esther settler Avraham Sandak, a 29-year-old father of three. "They keep wrecking it and we keep rebuilding."

"Even if some of our brothers don't understand that and face great pressure from the Americans and Europeans, that doesn't bother us. We will continue on our path," he added. "If we left then the Arabs would say they want Tel Aviv.



Jerusalem Post: "Security forces demolish West Bank outpost Maoz Esther"

May. 21, 2009
AP and jpost.com staff

Civil Administration and police forces on Thursday morning demolished a minor Jewish outpost named Maoz Esther near Kokhav Hashachar in Samaria, the West Bank, three days after US President Barack Obama told visiting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he must call a halt to settlement activity.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the forces evicted several families and bachelors who had been staying in seven metal huts. The structures were removed.

Rosenfeld said the police encountered no violent resistance, and no arrests were made.

Maoz Esther resident Avraham Sandak said 40 people had been living at the hilltop site northeast of Ramallah and that they would start work immediately to replace the demolished buildings.

"We hope to sleep here tonight and we hope, with God's help, to rebuild it, not like before but bigger," he said.

Israeli peace groups say there are at least 100 wildcat outposts in the West Bank, in addition to 121 settlements authorized by the government.

Peace Now security-general Yariv Oppenheimer played down the importance of the evacuation, calling it a "public relations exercise" as Maoz Esther was merely a "puny outpost. not real, but abandoned."

"To make a true change, real outposts should be taken care of," Oppenheimer added.

On Wednesday settler leaders tried to persuade the government to stand firm against US pressure to halt the building of new homes in the settlements.

In a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak that they initiated, they asked him to unfreeze construction permits for West Bank settlements.

Barak said he would prefer to remove the outposts through dialogue with the settler leaders.

"If it won't be by dialogue, though, we will act swiftly and aggressively to enforce the law," he said.



AFP" "Israel dismantles West Bank settlement outpost"

May 21, 2009

KOKHAV HASHAHAR, West Bank (AFP) - Israeli police said they razed a tiny Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank on Thursday in what media
called a gesture to US President Barack Obama after his talks with
Israel's prime minister.

"We dismantled seven tin huts," said police spokesman Danny Peleg,
specifying that the outpost had been built without government authorisation.

No violence was reported as police, backed by army troops, evacuated
settlers from the Maoz Ester outpost, near the Kokhav Hashahar
settlement east of Ramallah, the political capital of the West Bank.

The international community considers all settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territory illegal, while Israel considers as illegal only
the outposts, often just a few hundred meters away from larger
settlements, built without Israeli government authorisation.

Obama told right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during
White House talks on Monday that Israel should stop all settlement
activity, in line with its commitments at peace negotiations.

"Evacuating illegal outposts in the West Bank is expected to be the
Netanyahu government's first gesture toward Obama and the Palestinian
Authority," the Haaretz daily said, linking Thursday's operation to the
talks in Washington.

Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have agreed on a plan to
evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank, the newspaper said.

On Wednesday Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a delegation of settler
leaders Israel would uphold the law and evacuate any illegal settlements.

The settlers met Barak to protest what they claim is a continuation of a
West Bank settlement "construction freeze."

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are among the main obstacles in the
stumbling peace talks with the Palestinians.

Israel reiterated at the 2007 Annapolis, Maryland peace conference it
would freeze the activity but Israel's anti-settlement Peace Now
movement says that 1,518 new structures were built in settlements and
outposts in 2008, compared to 898 structures in 2007.

Peace Now says more than 280,000 people live in 120 settlements and
about 100 outposts in the West Bank.



JTA: "Israeli forces evacuate small outpost"

May 21, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israeli security forces evacuated an illegal outpost.

Police and civil administration forces removed seven metal containers serving as cabins from the Maoz Esther outpost in the West Bank on Thursday morning.

The evacuation came a day after Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with settler leaders and told them that he would evacuate illegal outposts by force if negotiations failed. The outpost's residents left without resisting.

Some five families and several young people reportedly lived at the site, which is located near the settlement of Kochav Hashachar, northeast of Ramallah.

Some of the settlers, representing the Youth for the Land of Israel movement, reportedly set up a new wooden structure later Thursday and were joined by National Union lawmaker Michael Ben Ari, Ynet reported.

"The place will be built and even expanded," Binyamin Regional Council head Avi Roeh said following the evacuation.

Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer said the evacuation did not go far enough.

"The evacuation of the tiny outpost is a PR stunt and is no substitute for the evacuation of the significant outposts in the territories," he said. "The evacuation of a few tents is no way to seriously deal with illegal construction in the territories."



May 22, 2009

New York Times: "Israel Removes Illegal Settler Outpost in West Bank"

By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM - Israeli police and security forces on Thursday dismantled a small Jewish outpost in the West Bank in what many here saw as a gesture by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to President Obama three days after their meeting in Washington.

No arrests were made at the illegal outpost, where at least four families lived in a couple of concrete structures and several temporary shacks. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the timing of the action was not significant. Another small West Bank outpost was removed about two months ago, he said.

But it was the first time Israel's new right-leaning government had removed an outpost, and settler leaders and others saw it as a political message.

"It seems that this was done in order to throw a bone to the United States president," Avi Roeh, the chairman of the local settler council, told Israel Radio.

Pressing for a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Obama administration has made clear that it expects Israel to carry out a total settlement freeze and remove illegal outposts in the West Bank, according to Israel's commitments under a 2003 peace plan known as the road map.

The outpost, Maoz Esther, is in the Ramallah region. Hours after it was dismantled, a resident, Daniel Landesberg, 19, said he had already set about rebuilding his demolished home.

Speaking by telephone, Mr. Landesberg said the move was "a signal" from Mr. Netanyahu to Mr. Obama that Israel would do whatever he asked.

Israeli government officials say they want to remove the outposts by agreement with the settlers in order to avoid confrontation. Long months of talks under the previous government, however, did not yield tangible results.

Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, met with settler leaders on Wednesday and told them that the illegal outposts were damaging Israel's international relations and their own cause. He said the outposts would be removed "if not through dialogue, then through swift and aggressive enforcement."

On Thursday, Mr. Barak said that the evacuation of Maoz Esther was "not connected with the Americans or American pressure" and that it was carried out according to routine orders. More than a hundred outposts dot the West Bank, alongside dozens of established Jewish settlements authorized by Israel but widely considered abroad a violation of international law.

Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that opposes Jewish settlement in the West Bank, said that the outpost evacuated on Thursday was not a significant one, and that the action was "more about P.R." after the Washington meeting. Mr. Oppenheimer added that the same outpost has been evacuated at least twice before.