Deal With Settlers Aimed at Getting Them to Leave Other Illegal Buildings

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is reportedly in negotiations with settlers at several illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank, with a deal expected to legalize one of them in return for voluntarily leaving some other buildings.

Internationally speaking, of course, all settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, but some are doubly illegal in that they were also set up in violation of Israel’s notoriously pro-settler legal system.

In this case, the Havat Gilad outpost was set up by Kahanist settlers, and was on the list of settlements Israel promised the US it would eventually demolish. That plan seems to be close to being abandoned.

Instead, Ya’alon hopes to convince settlers to voluntarily leave four buildings in Area B, the part of the West Bank which the Palestinian Authority is supposed to control. In return they would look the other way on the broader settlement.