CNN.com November 28, 2003
Report: Israel to close some settlements
Under growing pressure to move forward in the peace process, the Israeli Defense Ministry has drawn up a list of settlement outposts to uproot from the West Bank, beginning as early as next week, state radio reported Friday.
The report comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his country will have to make "painful concessions" and withdraw from Palestinian land to move the peace process forward.
Recent statements by government officials, however, indicate that other outposts will be granted legal status, in defiance of the road map -- a plan for peace drawn up by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.
Israel Radio reported that the Defense Ministry decided on outposts slated for removal, but it did not elaborate on which ones were on the list. Settlers would likely try to appeal the decision, the report stated. The Israeli government has estimated the outposts -- usually beginning with a few trailers that gradually expand to full-blown housing settlements -- number more than 40. The Israeli group Peace Now lists more than 100, more than half of them established since May 2001.
The report on a decision to dismantle some of the outposts comes ahead of this weekend's visit by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns, and as the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers prepare for their first meeting, expected in the next two weeks.
Sharon says security fence will be built
Sharon said on Thursday that he supported the road map plan -- which calls for both Palestinians and Israelis to take steps aimed at ending the conflict and establishing an independent Palestine by 2005. Progress on the plan was delayed this summer after renewed rounds of attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The prime minister spoke of the "painful concessions" that Israel is prepared to make, but did not concede to pressure to dismantle the barrier being built around Israel -- which an international policy research group says extends at times into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.
"Israel will have to make painful concessions -- it is clear that we will not remain in all the places we are in now," he said. "If the Palestinians would not have started with terrorism we would not have built the security fence but the work on the fence will be accelerated -- it is essential to Israel's security."
The Palestinians call the barrier a land grab, noting construction around some Jewish settlements does not follow the so-called Green Line, the frontier between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 war.
The new barrier will follow the old line, but at some points will veer into the West Bank, enclosing some 77-square kilometers of occupied land. At least 11 Palestinian villages will end up on the Israeli side of the barrier, according to globalsecurity.org, a nonpartisan international policy research group.
Israel has said the barrier -- which is a few kilometers inside the West Bank in most cases but follows the contours of the border with Israel -- is necessary to stop Palestinian terrorists from entering Israel.
In October, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs William Burns called on Israelis to stop settlement activity and the construction of the barrier, insisting it "undermines Israeli and Palestinian interests."
The Israeli government began building the barrier last year. In some spots, it is an electronic fence topped with razor wire and in other spots a massive concrete wall.
Israel has built 93 miles (150 km) of the barrier in the north. When finished the barrier will stretch 428 miles (690 km) at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion - a little more than $3.5 million per mile.
Briefing the U.N. Security Council earlier this month, Kieran Prendergast, under-secretary-general for political affairs, said construction of the barrier made peace more difficult to achieve, diminished trust, and made the realization of a two-state solution more difficult.
CNN Correspondent Chris Burns contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2003, Cable News Network
