At the summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh two weeks ago, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he "has no intention of delaying talks on the establishment of a Palestinian state." A few days later, "political sources in Jerusalem" pledged that Olmert "intends in the coming months to evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank." Senior government spokesmen have liberally dispensed such declarations in recent years. A short drive along West Bank roads demonstrates that talk is one thing, action another; while the government talks about "a political horizon," in the form of two states, Israel's actions on the ground and its scandalous failings are pushing this solution off toward the horizon.

A new report from Peace Now, details of which appeared this past Friday in Haaretz, reveals the jurisdictions of 92 out of 164 settlements, outposts and industrial zones in the West Bank were expanded or redrawn after the Oslo Accords. The report, which relies on Civil Administration data, further discloses that merely 9 percent of all areas under the settlements' jurisdiction have been built on, and just another 12 percent has been put to some use. Furthermore, despite the broad areas under their jurisdiction, 90 percent of the settlements exceed their jurisdictions, and about a third of the areas that settlements effectively control are outside their jurisdictions - for the most part on Palestinian land.

In High Court of Justice deliberations in recent years, it emerged that the separation fence, which was designed to fill a security need, is also being exploited for realizing the settlement development plans at the expense of Palestinian property and well-being. The former defense minister, Amir Peretz, did not keep his promise to reexamine the fence route and order it amended at every site where it was found that Palestinian land was encroached upon. Talia Sasson's March 2005 outposts report, which recommended measures for restraining the real estate free-for-all in the territories, is also gathering dust in the archives.

	Advertisement

At worst, the government is being negligent in thwarting the land theft in the West Bank, out of a failure to grasp the ramifications of this scandal for the chance to implement a two-state solution. At the absolute worst, the government is exercising a deliberate policy, the purpose of which is to reduce the living space of the Palestinian population in Area C (which is under full Israeli control), transfer the land reserves to Israeli citizens and foil the establishment of an independent and sustainable Palestinian state. Either way, this grave phenomenon is a blatant violation of principled obligations that Israel undertook in the Oslo Accords, not to take any unilateral steps to change matters until negotiations over the permanent status of the territories have been completed.

The formation of a new Palestinian government committed to all previous agreements, including the road map, requires the Olmert government to review its policy not only regarding the release of tax revenue and removal of checkpoints. To grant validity to its demand that the Palestinian side honor agreements with it, even at the cost of exacerbating the conflict with opponents, Israel must demonstrate that "painful concessions" are not an empty slogan. Whoever is afraid to remove illegal outposts and expands settlements should not be surprised if his festive pronouncements do not produce the hoped-for change.