The interministerial committee on illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank held its first meeting in nearly two years yesterday, but the session was notable mainly for the argument that erupted between Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
"These aren't illegal outposts," claimed Lieberman. "Everything was done with the government's permission, even if it was with a wink; therefore everything is legal. You can't pave roads and transfer water and electricity lines in the dead of night. It is inconceivable that today, people are suddenly denying this."
"There's a government commitment [to remove the outposts], so we have to remove them," Livni retorted.
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Lieberman also wrote Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday to demand that a committee be established to examine illegal Arab building in the Negev, the Galilee and Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank.
Vice Premier Haim Ramon, who chairs the committee, said that by November, he hopes to have drafted new rules on planning and building in the West Bank, which would then be passed into law by the Knesset.
The committee's job, he stressed, is not to evacuate outposts; that is the job of the prime and defense ministers. Rather, it is to formulate procedures "that will prevent new outposts from being established."
However, Ramon added, evacuating the outposts "should not await completion of the committee's work," since Israel has promised the United States that this will be done.
Deputy Attorney General Mike Blass and representatives of the Civil Administration told the committee that no new outposts have been established since 2006, but existing ones have been expanded.
Meanwhile, residents of several outposts said yesterday that they would not abide by any agreement to evacuate certain outposts voluntarily, should Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Yesha Council of West Bank Settlements reach one.
They also announced plans to set up five new West Bank outposts during next month's Sukkot holiday.
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