SASSON SHAKEN BY MOJ PLAN TO LAUNDER, EXPAND

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 003511

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/31/2016
TAGS: KWBG PGOV PREL IS
SUBJECT: SASSON SHAKEN BY MOJ PLAN TO LAUNDER, EXPAND
OUTPOSTS

REF: A. TEL AVIV 03438

B. TEL AVIV 03458

Classified By: Ambassador Richard H. Jones for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (S) This is an action request message. See paragraph 11.


2. (S) Summary: Talia Sasson, the attorney who wrote the
blockbuster report in March 2005 on illegal outposts activity
in the West Bank, was visibly disturbed and agitated by a
draft proposal in response to her report that the Ministry of
Justice (MOJ) is preparing on how to handle construction
activity in the territories. Sasson met with EconCouns and
econoff on August 31, and explained in detail what her main
concerns are about the draft proposal: no mention of
evacuating outposts; secret government decisions on where to
build settlements; various ways for the settlers themselves
to expand existing settlements; the possibility of
retroactively authorizing illegal outposts; and the
possibility of providing government funding for illegal
outposts. Sasson not only criticized the recommendations,
but objected to the indecipherable legal language used, which
she speculated was designed to confuse both cabinet ministers
voting on the proposal and the USG. She explained that the
draft proposal contradicts the spirit of the recommendations
in her March 2005 report, which is to give the GOI more
direct authority to restrict and dismantle settlements and
outposts, and added that she expects the MOJ proposal to be
ratified in the near future. End summary.


3. (S) Talia Sasson, an attorney commissioned by former
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to investigate illegal outpost
activity in the West Bank, published a report in March 2005
that offered numerous recommendations on how the Israeli
government should amend legislation to give it more legal
control over housing construction in the territories. An
inter-ministerial committee was established to study how to
implement her recommendations, but the implementation effort
was sidelined for over a year by Gaza disengagement, Sharon's
health problems, and government elections. Over the summer,
however, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ),which chaired the
committee, prepared a draft proposal on how to reform the
laws pertaining to illegal outposts. Sasson said she
received a copy of the proposal for comment, and subsequently
wrote a very critical 30-page letter to the MOJ detailing her
main concerns. She told EconCouns and econoff on August 31
that the draft proposal moves in the exact opposite direction
of her March 2005 report (which detailed a pervasive
inter-ministerial web of support for settlement activity
throughout the West Bank),and clearly contradicts the spirit
of her recommendations, which is to give the GOI more direct
legal authority to restrict and dismantle outposts and
settlements.

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GOI Intent
--------------


4. (S) Sasson commented that the Israeli government thinks,
"erroneously and arrogantly," that the proposal will somehow
co-opt the West Bank settlers by legalizing many outposts and
allowing settlement expansion in some areas, while winning
their submission to the idea of some settlement evacuations
in the unspecified future. Sasson said that, even if there
is a withdrawal of settlers and settlements from the West
Bank, which she doubts, the government should not trust the
settlers to go quietly, and should in fact realize that
giving outposts a legal basis for existence will only make a
future disengagement all the more difficult.

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No Word on Evacuations
--------------


5. (S) Sasson reported that one of her concerns with the
MOJ's draft is that "there is not one word on evacuations" of
any illegal outposts, whether pre- or post-March 2001
outposts. She said that the GOI clearly has the legal
authority to evacuate, at the very least, any outposts which
her research found were built on private Palestinian land,
but the MOJ's proposal does not discuss this issue, leaving
it sufficiently vague that pro-outpost advocates can continue
to stymie evacuation efforts. She also stressed that her
report counted 105 illegal outposts, but that the MOJ draft
uses a figure from the Ministry of Defense (MOD) that, while
not specified in the MOJ draft, Sasson knows from her
research to be about 81 outposts, not 105.

--------------
Decisions on Settlements
Will be Secret
--------------


6. (S) Sasson said that another of her concerns is that a
committee of six ministers -- the prime minister and
ministers of defense, justice, housing, interior, and
agriculture -- will replace the former structure which
required the approval of entire cabinet to decide where a
settlement will be established, and their decision need not
be publicly disclosed. She explained that when Binyamin
Netanyahu was prime minister in 1996, he wrote a directive
that required that the entire Cabinet decide where a
settlement would be built in the West Bank. (Note: The
previous prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, had ordered
construction of new settlements to stop during his tenure in
office, which gave rise to the illegal outposts phenomenon.
When Netanyahu because prime minister, he publicly rescinded
Rabin's order that halted construction, and himself wrote the
directive requiring full-Cabinet decisions. End note.)
Sasson noted that Netanyahu's directive implied that if the
cabinet makes a decision, it should be public knowledge
because meeting minutes are published. Now, however, no one
will know what the smaller committee decides about
construction in the West Bank because committee minutes are
not required to be published, she concluded.


-------------- --------------
Approving Expansion of Existing Settlements and Illegal
Outposts
-------------- --------------


7. (S) Sasson voiced distress at how the MOJ proposal would
dramatically increase the channels by which the settlers
could secure approvals for expansions, whether for those
supposedly already covered by existing master plans or for
entirely new expansions. Another of the draft's proposals
that Sasson took issue with is the retroactive approval of
illegal outposts. According to Sasson, currently a
settlement must meet four criteria for the Israeli government
to consider it a legally-established entity: the government
must have formally decided to build on a particular location;
it must be part of an approved master plan; it must be on
state land; and it must have municipal borders. If a planned
expansion is missing one of the components, the GOI consider
the location to be an outpost, she explained. In order to
make an outpost legal, she continued, the MOJ draft proposal
suggests that a master plan be prepared for construction of
houses "around" the outpost, rather than retroactively
authorizing what is already in place. For example, if an
illegal outpost consists of three or four trailers on a
hilltop, the GOI will prepare a "legal" plan to build houses
around the trailers, thus providing de facto authorization
for the entire area without technically approving the three
or four trailers themselves. Sasson asserted that this can
in no way be legal, and said that she hopes an organization
like Peace Now will take the GOI to court over its
intentions to proceed in this manner. In response to
econoff's question on the logic of this idea, Sasson
speculated that it could be a way for the GOI to claim to the
USG that it is not technically retroactively authorizing
illegal outposts.

--------------
Exceptions Committee to
Fund Illegal Outposts
--------------


8. (S) Sasson also highlighted a proposal in the MOJ draft
calling for a new exceptions committee, that could circumvent
restrictions on the use of public funds for illegal outposts.
This committee would be comprised of the director general of
the Prime Minister's Office acting as the chairman, a
representative from the MOD, and a representative from the
Ministry of Finance. A representative from the AG office can
participate in the discussions. Sasson pointed out that the
AG in 2004 ruled that no public funds can be invested in
illegal actions, i.e. outposts. However, the MOJ draft,
while noting this, says that "in exceptional cases in which
the necessary needs of the public require the investment of
resources," the committee will be authorized to approve
funding for unauthorized outposts. Sasson stressed that this
contradicts the AG's ruling, and stressed the fact that there
are no criteria set forth to determine which "exceptional
cases" would require public monies. (Comment: Emboffs are
not naive enough to think that elements in the GOI stopped
providing support to illegal outposts after the AG ruling,
but the creation of the exceptions committee would clearly
and formally contradict the ruling. End comment.)

--------------
Report is Terrible;
Why Write It?
--------------


9. (S) In addition to protesting the recommendations
themselves, Sasson said that she objected to the way the
proposal was written because the language of the draft is
indecipherable legalese. She explained that it is nearly
impossible to understand, and that she spent hours going over
the ten-page document in order to ferret out what the MOJ's
recommendations are. She mentioned that she showed it to
several other attorneys who also could not make heads or
tails of its meaning at first glance. Sasson speculated that
the language used is designed so that cabinet ministers will
not understand what they will be voting for, and partly so
that the USG will not complain about the proposal. When
asked by Econcouns whether the MOJ took GOI commitments to
the U.S. to dismantle illegal outposts into consideration
when writing the draft, Sasson replied that this did not
enter into their consideration. She asked rhetorically, "If
they didn't want to do anything with my report, why bother?
They should've just let it go and done nothing, rather than
this."

--------------
Draft to be Ratified Soon
--------------


10. (S) EconCouns asked whether Sasson expects the draft to
be reviewed and possibly revised in any way. Sasson replied
that the only opposition to the draft currently stems from
the Labor Party, and even in that case probably comes from
only Ophir Pines-Paz, and possibly Kadima's Shimon Peres.
She said that Defense Minister Amir Peretz might be opposed
to the draft, but thought that he does not have time to deal
with it. Sasson speculated that the orders to write a draft
such as this probably came from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
himself. She claimed that then-Justice Minister Haim Ramon
spoke to the settlers about the proposal over the summer, and
that the settlers gave comments on the draft. She said that
she would not be surprised if the settlers themselves wrote
the proposal. (Comment: Peace Now Secretary General Yariv
Oppenheimer and Settlement Watch Coordinator Dror Etkes
(please protect) told econoff that they had testified in
front of the inter-ministerial committee on the Sasson Report
in June and July, as had the settlers. Oppenheimer and Etkes
said that, while Ramon asked good and pertinent questions
about outposts, he seemed to take the settlers' side. End
comment.) In response to EconCouns' question on how close
the draft is to being ratified, Sasson replied that she
thought it could be imminent because it needs only Cabinet
approval -- not review by the Knesset or High Court. She
explained that the Cabinet review -- and possible action --
had been scheduled for Sunday, September 3, but that it was
postponed, probably so that Acting Justice Minister Meir
Sheetrit can get up to speed on the issue. She assessed that
the vote will be re-scheduled fairly quickly.


11. (S) Action Request: We urge Washington to call for
urgent consultations to ensure that GOI commitments to the
USG on settlements and outposts are not irrevocably reversed.
Proposed talking points will be provided septel.

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