Ministers: 'Stop calling outposts illegal'
Israel Matzav: Ministers: 'Stop calling outposts illegal'"We need to eradicate the term 'illegal outposts,'" Ya'alon added. "These are communities that were established with the state's encouragement, yet the legal definition has made them illegal."
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was also on the tour, made similar comments.
"Every community that the government established and financed is legal," he said. "We have to speak the truth: It is impossible to say this is illegal."
"Honing" this message, he added, is the best way to combat a highly critical report on the outposts prepared a few years ago by government attorney Talia Sasson.
Both ministers were responding to settler complaints that whenever leftist organizations petition the High Court against an outpost, the prosecution replies that the outpost is indeed illegal and that demolition orders have been issued against it.
"With responses like that, the court isn't left with any room to decide," noted Pinchas Wallerstein, secretary general of the Yesha Council of settlements.
The settlers argued that instead, the state should say the outposts were in the middle of the approval process and would receive final approval soon. That, they said, would deter petitioners from even going to court, lest by so doing they actually hasten the approval process.
Ya'alon said he had discussed this issue with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised that Defense Minister Ehud Barak would look into it.
Associates of Barak responded that the minister's policy is to "uphold the law," both on the ground and in responses to the High Court.Read All at :
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