West Bank Outposts Israel Decided to Legalize Are on Disputed Lands

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2023-02-15/ty-article/.premium/west-bank-outposts-israel-decided-to-legalize-are-on-disputed-lands/00000186-555f-df98-abb6-57dfc1bd0000

Clarifying the legal status of lands, a process which is required before declaring a piece of land as 'state land,' has not been done in the case of outposts that the Israeli cabinet voted to legalize on Sunday. The NGO Peace Now found that as many as 38 percent may be privately owned by Palestinians

by Hagar Shezaf         15 February 2023           Haaretz

The Givat Harel Outpost in the West Bank, which Israel has started the process of legalizing.Credit: Binyamin Regional Council

Some of the illegal West Bank outposts that the Israeli cabinet voted on Sunday to authorize are on land with unclear ownership status, and may be privately owned, a review by Peace Now revealed.

A source involved in the authorization process confirmed that checks into the status of some lands have not been completed. Such a process is required by law before declaring any plot to be state land.

Peace Now found that of the 1,100 dunams (275 acres) over which the illegal outposts in question are spread, 420 dunams – or 38 percent – have an undetermined status. These include Givat Harel and Givat Arnon. In contrast, the reviews for Asael and Avigail have been completed. Out of 10 outposts, three are farms with few buildings, while others are localities with dozens of buildings.

Likewise, according to Peace Now, two of the outposts slated to be legalized – Avigail and Malachei Hashalom – are located partly inside military firing zones. Moreover, Peace Now officials said that some of the outposts had previously filed construction plans that had been rejected or frozen.

A source familiar with the authorization effort said that these 10 outposts were chosen because they can’t be authorized other than as independent settlements. Normally, Israel prefers to authorize illegal outposts as neighborhoods of existing settlements because doing so doesn’t require cabinet approval. Still, authorizing outposts as settlement neighborhoods requires meeting planning criteria that tie them to the existing settlement, which is not the case for these 10 outposts.

After receiving cabinet approval, the first step in the authorization process for illegal outposts as independent settlements, the legal status of the land to be allocated to the outpost must be clarified. It must also have a proper city building plan. Then it has to go through five stages of approval in the higher planning council within the Civil Administration. Each of these five stages currently requires approval at the state level, but Bezalel Smotrich, the minister within the Defense Ministry, wants to change this process.

• U.S., European top diplomats slam Israel's plan to build 10,000 housing units in West Bank
• Israel uproots settlement olive grove on Supreme Court orders, enraging the right
• Israel’s Supreme Court is no human rights savior. Just ask the Palestinians

The higher planning council will meet next week to advance construction of 7,023 housing units in existing West Bank settlements, also as a result of a security cabinet decision. 1,943 of the units are expected to receive final approval and 5,089 units initial approval. Some of the units are located in isolated settlements like Rahelim, Neriya, Dolev and Elon Moreh. Additionally, the outpost Mevo’ot Yericho, which was declared a settlement three years ago, is expected to receive final authorization. Some of the apartments have already been built, such that their approval in the council will be retroactive.

Also, the council plans to approve 433 apartments in the settlement of Elazar, next to the place from which the outpost Nativ Ha’avot was evacuated five years ago. The new units will not be built on the private land from which the outpost was evacuated, rather on plots declared as state land. According to the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, headed by a close associated of Smotrich, 2,117 housing units will be constructed.

The planning stages make authorizing illegal outposts like Mevo’ot Yericho an extended process. Part of the delay has stemmed from the politicians slowing down the process under international pressure. Another example is Havot Gilad. The government decided to authorize it after the murder of Raziel Shevach in a 2018 shooting attack. However, resident Itai Zar said the access road to the outpost was only recently authorized. Havot Gilad’s development plan has yet to be approved, after which it will still have to go through the higher planning council’s approval stages.

Smotrich aspires to speed up this process. Likewise, he said, the decision to authorize the 10 outposts included a clause enabling the authorization of most of the remaining outposts in the West Bank. The logic behind this decision is that these outposts will now be considered as being on the authorization track, which will allow connecting them to the electricity grid – if and when the Defense Minister signs electricity order advanced by the previous government.

Peace Now commented: “The government of Israel continues to act with determination to entrench the occupation and to create facts on the ground, with the goal of preventing the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state. While the immediate and primary victims are the Palestinian residents, the government dooms Israelis to live in a non-democratic state, because there is no democracy with occupation and settlements.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------