23 Israeli Settlements To Be Evacuated Soon: Ehud Barak

In a sign that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and US Middle East envoy George Mitchell are making headway in their London talks over the Middle East peace effort this week, Barak told Israel's Army Radio that 23 illegal outposts will be subject to evacuation in the near future. According to the Jerusalem Post, the time frame Barak gave--of weeks or months, as opposed to years--is significant as a sign of goodwill to neighboring Arab states, with whom the United States is also involving in the process. From Jerusalem Post:

"While they are demanding from Israel steps and concessions in order to enable this regional peace effort to take off, they are approaching the Arabs as well and asking what they can contribute in terms of... starting normalization with Israel," he said. "We are looking and trying to find a formula (which) needs to show our readiness to be sensitive to the needs of others."

Barak and Mitchell issued a joint statement following the talks which, according to Haaretz, discussed the two officials' efforts to tackle a broad range of issues, including settlements, but which left some "that [still] require clarification and solutions." According to the statement, Barak and Mitchell:

"discussed the full range of issues related to Middle East peace and security and the contributions Israelis, Palestinians, their neighbors and the international community should make to this effort. Specifically, their discussions covered a wide range of measures needed to create a climate conducive to peace. These included measures on security and incitement by the Palestinians, steps by Arab states toward normalization with Israel, and, from Israel, actions on access and movement in the West Bank and on settlement activity. The discussions were constructive and will continue soon."

Mitchell is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week to continue the talks, according to the Haaretz report. At issue will be Netanyahu's refusal thus far to completely freeze settlements, including their "natural growth" from births. The 2003 Road Map under the Bush administration calls for such a freeze, but it has yet to be fully followed, despite the White House's demands, according to AFP.

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Comments

[BackToFight]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/08/2500-israeli-settlements_n_227580.html

[mamacat]

Iran's leaders are discovering that they are losing their legitimacy, in the eyes of the world and inside their own borders, by suppressing legitimate elections.

The Israelis are discovering that they are losing legitimacy, in the eyes of the world, by continueing to occupy and by continueing to build settlements outside of Israel.

[whoa20]

So when is the Palestinian Authority gonna make concessions?

[mamacat]

They will be dismantling their outposts inside of Israel sometime soon.

[Wisdo]

Im sure their blockade of Tel aviv may be lifted slightly to allow in food and crayons soon.

[faith]

The only way to get the Israeli government to quash the ever expanding settlements and abide by agreements is to cut off ALL AMERICAN FUNDS TO ISRAEL. Israel has done well, they sell their own products at this point and frankly, we do not need to continue to subsidize them or provide them with funds for good behavior. Cut off the money to Israel, congress. Do it now. The U.S. needs to feed, house, and provide medical care for its own citizens. If Israel recognizes that we will not fund them it might, hopefully, provide a catalyst to get them to seek better relationships with their neighbors. Let's spend our money on bread and aid.

[CigarGod]

This is nothing.
Another meaningless offer.

[gbrooks]

Indeed. Those who pay attention know that this has been done many times before and it's just a stall tactic, a little something to appease the demands.

[LeeCalif]

Israel's latest crimes and old man Dershowitz tried to give the criminals some cover.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0907/S00067.htm#a%23a

[Gewyne]

This is misleading - the article is talking about "Outpost which are often nothing more than sheds or shacks stuck in the West bank to inconvenience Palestinians - your headline says "Settlements" which refer to pernament housing and infrastructure - none of which are coming down.

Maybe the articles title should be changed to "outpost" so as not to mislead people.

[driven989]

EXCELLENT POINT! Outposts are NOT settlements.

[MBW001]

To many (far too many) , Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, etc. are Jewish settlements as well that need to be evacuated. It's a question of degree. Goodness me, I even heard that some people in Alaska consider Africa to be a country!

[GeoffMenendez]

Nonsense. Most have made peace with the fact that the Israeli occupying government has the power to defend its theft of the three-quarters of Palestine that they stole. Fighting for the rights of the native owners of Palestine to retain the remaining quarter is not "a question of degree."

[BackToFight]

Why don't I believe them? And why do I have a gut feeling that as they dismantle small outposts, they will build larger settlements at the same time, of which the MSM will not report about?

[LeLoup]

Interesting!
We're getting mixed signals on the question of the settlements. Bibi say one thing (settlements is our policy and our own only) and Ehud Barak will evacuate not one, but 23 (!!) "illegal settlement posts.

[Gewyne]

Outposts are just sheds basicly - put up to inconvenience Palestinians.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/world/middleeast/22israel.html

[GeoffMenendez]

They're all illegal. Everything the Israeli forces built on the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967 is illegal.

[Macready]

I'll believe when I see it .. . until then my guess is israel will keep jerking Mitchell around and keep taking US taxpayers dollars .. .

[loki]

Are they trying to create a buffer zone in case Iran can retaliate when they are bombed?