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Israeli & Int'l Articles on Compromise on Illegal Migron Outpost

Peace Now harshly criticized the compromise, saying the settlers and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose ministry arranged the deal, were merely "buying time."

International Herald Tribune/The Associated Press

Monday, November 24, 2008

JERUSALEM: Israel's government and West Bank settlers have reached a compromise that will avoid the immediate evacuation of an unauthorized West Bank outpost, both sides said Monday.

The outpost of Migron, north of Jerusalem, will be moved to a different site near another West Bank settlement, according a document the government submitted to the Supreme Court. But the government says that won't happen "in the near future," because it will take time to plan a new site and build homes. That process is likely to take years, and in the meantime the some 45 families at Migron will stay where they are.

The government was responding to a Supreme Court appeal submitted by the Palestinian owners of the land on which Migron sits.

Migron was built without government authorization on privately owned Palestinian land, beginning in 1999. But the government has provided electricity and water grids, a road and security. It is one of about 100 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank.

The dovish Israeli group Peace Now harshly criticized the compromise, saying the settlers and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose ministry arranged the deal, were merely "buying time."

"We condemn the decision of the defense minister to surrender to the settlers and lawbreakers and delay the evacuation of Migron," said Hagit Ofran of Peace Now.

Yishay Hollender, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the settler umbrella group that struck the deal with the government, said the compromise was in the settlers' best interests. The new site was to the east of the existing settlement of Adam, near Jerusalem, he said, and was in effect a new settlement.

The goal was to avoid a violent evacuation that would establish a precedent, Hollender said, and it also meant the Migron settlers will have several more years at least in their current homes.


Ynet: "Court warns State against delaying Migron evacuation"

11/26/08

In hearing on petition filed by Peace Now, Supreme Court president orders ministers to explain why outpost was not evacuated, slams State Prosecutor's Office for failing to follow through with their resolutions
by Aviad Glickman

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered the State to explain within 45 days why all means are not being used to evacuate the Migron outpost in the West Bank.
 
In a hearing held following a petition submitted by the Peace Now movement, State representatives claimed that the Yesha Council had understood that the outpost would have to be moved to a different location.
 
On Monday the State issued a statement announcing that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had decided together with the Yesha Council that Migron would be moved to the West Bank settlement of Adam. The ministers requested that a progress report be filed within four months.
 
But Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish was not satisfied with the settlement between the two sides, and criticized the State's conduct. "What you are actually saying now is that it won't happen quickly," she said, referring to the four months allotted to the Yesha Council.
 
"The statement you issued earlier has become empty words as well as all of your previous declarations. You are actually saying you can't carry them out," Beinish added.
 
Attorneys representing Peace Now claimed during the hearing that the State was requesting the court's permission to continue to deny Palestinians of their land, and to shirk the enforcement of the law.
 
They also presented a statement issued by Brigadier General (Res) Ilan Paz, who headed the Civil Administration in the years 2002-2005, which said that the approval and construction of the neighborhood intended for the Migron evacuees would take up to seven years.
 
Michael Sfard, an attorney for the petitioners, commended the court on its conduct. "We are now on our way towards the first evacuation carried out as a result of a warrant issued by the court, imposed upon the State. The court saw through the spin that the prime minister and defense minister attempted to create."


Jerusalem Post: "Court queries state's Migron position"

Nov. 26, 2008

JPost.com staff and AP , THE JERUSALEM POST

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday asked the government to explain within 45 days why it shouldn't use all means necessary to remove the unauthorized Migron outpost in the West Bank.

The court was responding to an appeal by Peace Now and the Palestinian land owners, who asked for an immediate eviction of the Migron settlers. An attorney for the land owners said the temporary ruling paved the way for an eviction order.

On Monday, the state informed the High Court that it planned to move the 46 families living in Migron to the nearby settlement of Adam in an area designated for residential housing. But it also made clear that it would take years before the occupants of the outpost, located a short distance north of Jerusalem, actually move.

"It must be stressed," the state's representative, attorney Aner Hellman, wrote in a brief to the court, "that we are not talking about moving Migron in the near future, considering that we must first implement planning procedures and then carry out the actual building at the new site."

In its brief, the state included a letter from Danny Dayan, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, agreeing to the government's proposal. Hellman wrote that the state had offered the council three options, but the council preferred to leave the decision to the state.

In a letter dated November 10, Dayan wrote that the council accepted the Adam site and "would act, to the extent that it depends on us, to advance the plan in order to implement it without delay."

For more than two years, settlement representatives and the state have been negotiating a deal that would prevent forced evacuations among the 101 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank. Migron, which is one of the largest of these outposts, is often seen as an acid test for such a deal, in which some of the outposts would be legalized and others moved to a nearby location.

Peace Now has in the past attacked the deal, which it said rewards settlers for breaking the law and contradicts international pledges that Israel has made to take down the outposts.

Migron was established in 2001, when settlers asked for permission to build a cellular antenna on a hill overlooking Highway 60, near the settlement of Kochav Ya'acov. The following year, settlers began moving mobile homes to the site without permission. By 2006, some 46 families were living there.

The state agreed with the petitioners that the outpost was illegal and must be removed. However, it repeatedly sought to postpone a hearing, either on the grounds that a new defense minister (first Amir Peretz, then Ehud Barak) had taken office and had to become acquainted with the issue, or because the state wished to reach an agreement with the settlers regarding the evacuation.

In January 2008, the state informed the court it would evacuate Migron in August if it could reach an agreement with the settlers by that time. In August, it informed the court that the settlers had agreed to move to one of three sites. It then asked for three more months to complete negotiations with settlement leaders.


Christian Science Monitor: "Israeli court rebukes state over illegal outposts"

The Supreme Court gave the government 45 days to explain why it hasn't taken down the illegal outpost of Migron in accord with the 'road map' peace plan.


By Joshua Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 28, 2008 edition
 
Correspondent Josh Mitnick talks about how the outpost was established and the reluctance of the Israeli Army to deal with settlers on the West Bank.

Tel Aviv - An Israeli government effort to make good on a five-year-old commitment to the US and Palestinians to rein in settlement expansion in the West Bank is coming under legal fire at home.

Under the 2003 "road map" peace plan, Israel promised to remove about two dozen or so unauthorized hilltop outposts as a way to build confidence in Palestinian peace talks, but has so far avoided dismantling the outpost communities for fear of violent clashes with settlers.

This week, the government revealed a compromise reached with the settler leadership aimed at avoiding conflict: Migron, a flagship outpost of 40 families living in mobile homes near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, would be relocated to an already existing settlement.

But at a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday, justices sided with Palestinians who own the land at Migron. Their lawyers argued that the deal allows the government to avoid evacuation during the minimum three years it could take to build new homes.

"I don't believe that Migron will be moved," says Michael Sfard, a lawyer for the settlement watchdog group Peace Now, which represented the Palestinians. "All of these statements are only made to enable more extensions by the courts."

Clashes over settlement evacuations will carry extra political weight in the run-up to a Feb. 10 general election, especially for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose Labor Party is sagging in the polls and desperately needs votes from left-wing Israelis. Mr. Barak, who oversees Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, is already embroiled in a standoff over a house in Hebron that settlers moved into illegally in 1997 and which the Supreme Court last week said must be cleared.

"The legal system is closing in on the government," says Hebrew University political science professor Yaron Ezrahi. "And so is public expectation that the government will do something about it. Things are moving finally, maybe because of the election."

The case of Migron highlights nearly three years of Israeli dissonance on settlements as the administration of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert draws to a close. The government admits that the outpost was erected on Palestinian land, but has repeatedly requested delays in court proceedings to avoid a clash.

Though Mr. Olmert came into office promising a unilateral withdrawal from some parts of the West Bank and new settlement evacuations, the number of Israelis has grown unabated in territories claimed by the Palestinians as a part of a future state.

With a February election approaching, Olmert has said Israel will have to return roughly to the 1967 border with the West Bank in a peace deal left for his successor, but has managed little progress on the unauthorized outposts.

The failure to tamp down settlement growth is a sore spot with the Palestinian Authority, which argues that the ongoing expansions undermine public support in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for peace talks.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish, who Peace Now says leveled pointed criticism of the government deal during the proceedings, gave the state 45 days to explain why it doesn't evacuate Migron.

Mr. Sfard argued that it would take three to seven years for new homes to be prepared for Migron residents, and that even though the new location is within the legal boundary of the settlement of Adam, it would represent a violation of the road map commitment to halt settlement expansion.
Settler leaders said they negotiated the compromise with the government to avoid a "rift" among Israelis over an evacuation. Any future settlement removal is almost certain to be more violent than the 2005 Gaza Strip withdrawal.

"We reached an agreement with the prime minister and the defense minister to lower the flames," says Pinchas Wallerstein, a former head of the settlers' council. "If the government of Israel can't make good on the agreement, it understands well the price it will pay. We tried to avoid conflict."