The Israeli government has admitted in a secret memorandum that Ariel Sharon has failed to honour commitments to President George Bush to dismantle Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank.

The memorandum, which originated in the Israeli foreign ministry and was leaked to Reuters, is an admission of duplicity by Mr Sharon, who gave face-to-face commitments to Mr Bush to dismantle the outposts to show good faith toward the US-led "road map" peace process.

The memo says: "International criticism is growing because of our lack of creative ideas for getting out of the conflict.

"Our claim that Israel has fulfilled its side of the 'road map' is seen as lacking credibility because not only have we not evacuated the illegal outposts, we are working in every way to whitewash their existence and build more."

At the Aqaba summit in June, Mr Sharon told Mr Bush he would remove Jewish settler outposts which even Israeli law recognises as illegal. The prime minister justified the move to his supporters by saying he was not giving ground to the Palestinians, merely enforcing Israeli law.

But after symbolically shutting about a dozen of the 100 or more outposts, the government quietly abandoned the closures.

In any case, some outposts were declared erased when they had been permitted to move a few hundred metres away. Others were re-established after a few weeks.