SHOCKED SQUARED:

Israel's aid to illegal settlers: An inquiry revealed official complicity in setting up some 105 unauthorized outposts. (Ben Lynfield, 3/10/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Illegal settler outposts that are consolidating Israel's grip on the West Bank are not pirate operations by hard-line settlers. They are established, maintained, and expanded with the backing of the Israeli government.

That charge, which cuts to the heart of one of the more loaded issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is no longer made only by dovish Israelis or Palestinians. It's now the official finding of a report commissioned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which was released Wednesday.

The report marks an embarrassment to Mr. Sharon and could intensify American calls for Israel to dismantle outposts in accordance with the international peace blueprint known as the road map. But the document, which does not implicate Sharon personally in illegalities, is not expected to have much of a political impact in Israel even though it was after Sharon became premier in March 2001 that the pace of outpost building greatly accelerated.

"People realize the whole Gaza disengagement depends on Sharon and don't want to put that in jeopardy," says Leslie Susser, diplomatic correspondent of the Jerusalem Report magazine. "For that reason I don't see a political move by the left, and for the right to try to get Sharon for playing their game would be disingenuous. Legally, he probably has not left any fingerprints."

But did know what they'd find and that he could use it to discredit and remove the settlements.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 9, 2005 5:57 PM