Former prime minister Ariel Sharon stalled the evacuation of illegal
outposts in the West Bank, while defense minister Shaul Mofaz did nothing
without his approval, a former top aide to Mofaz told Haaretz this week.

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Colonel (Res.) Ron Shechner, a former security officer of the Yesha
Council of settlements and head of the South Mount Hebron Regional Council, served as Mofaz's adviser on settlements for three years, starting in early 2003. Talia Sasson's report on illegal outposts and construction in the territories recommended firing him for exceeding his authority and conducting an independent policy.

"Mofaz never initiated anything," Shechner said, in his first interview
since resigning. "When we wanted to get anything done in the settlements
and outposts, we went to Sharon's aides. The ongoing decision not to
evacuate outposts was made by Sharon, not Mofaz. The only evacuations that took place resulted from the intervention of the High Court of Justice."

Shechner said that when he first entered office, the Defense Ministry
prepared a detailed plan to complete the planning and authorization of 63
outposts. "But the political leadership opted to do nothing. It was
official policy just to leave matters undefined," he said.

Shechner claimed that most communities, both in Israel and in the West
Bank, were built without a valid master plan and authorized only afterward.

"That's how communities in the Negev and Galilee, and also the West bank
settlements of Har Bracha, Dolev, Kfar Adumim and Otniel were built. It
was customary to build a settlement and start planning procedures at the
same time," he said.

"The government itself sold houses in settlements to people. Suddenly
Sasson discovered that the master plan was invalid and that not only the
outposts were illegal, but many West Bank settlements as well. Then the
government said sorry, the house we sold you is illegal, therefore you may not add a room, a kindergarten or an electricity line."

Shechner said that the government put people in an impossible situation,
forcing them to build illegally. "They brought people to the settlements 20 and 25 years ago, and now they're not allowing them to develop. What could people do? So they built illegally."

The outposts, he continued, resulted in part from the government's
strangulation of West Bank settlements. Sasson would not even allow the
"natural growth" of which former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin spoke,
because she had a political agenda, he charged.

"Everyone knows that most outposts could be authorized, as settlements were authorized after the fact, apart from a few outposts built on private Palestinian land. It's a political issue," he said.

"Sasson's worldview is legitimate, but what she did was illegitimate. She used her position to advance her political agenda. The political leadership must say what it wants. But those who refuse to do anything should not expect people to strangle themselves and give in to an unclear policy," he added.

Shechner said that the defense minister had to approve every construction
plan in the West Bank no less than eight times before it was authorized.
"Small things Mofaz authorized himself, but significant plans he always
submitted to Sharon. He never signed without Sharon's approval. Sharon's
support for the outposts was reflected, during the time I worked there, in doing nothing. This prevented evacuation, but did not advance construction or development."

Shechner claimed that he convinced Sharon to join Ma'aleh Adumim to
Jerusalem. He told Sharon that the road between Ma'aleh Adumim and
Jerusalem was severed by Arab villages. Sharon suggested increased
supervision of illegal construction in Arab communities, but "I persuaded
him that this had been tried and did not work. In the end, he approved the link, and another one in the Gush Etzion area. Occasionally, he rejected my recommendations, like authorizing an eastern neighborhood for Otniel."

Shechner admitted that he made decisions to allocate security measures to
outposts on his own accord, without advising the defense minister. But he
said that Sasson's report about the unauthorized moving of mobile homes was a lie. "Every trailer and mobile home was authorized by Mofaz," he said.

Shechner believes that the government is discriminating against the illegal outposts. "A stone's throw away, illegal construction is rampant in Arab villages. They are building tens of thousands of buildings and rooms and nobody's touching them," he said.

He denied having resigned because of the Sasson Report. "I left because of the expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif and the northern West Bank. Mofaz asked me what I was going to do, in view of the report's findings. I told him he could fire me if he wanted to. He didn't."

Later, Shechner said, he discovered that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz
kept calling Mofaz to ask what was happening with him. Shechner asked Mofaz to ask Mazuz to call him directly if he had any complaints. "Mazuz did call, but denied that he was pressuring Mofaz to fire me," he said.

These days, Shechner is directing the resettlement of those evacuated from the Gaza settlement of Netzer Hazani.