Israel legalizes 3 settlement outposts, adding more obstacles to Mideast peace

Israeli has legalized the status of three settlement outposts in the West Bank, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

At a meeting late Monday, a ministerial committee “decided to formalize the status of three communities which were established in the 1990s following the decisions of past governments,” said the statement, according to AFP.

The three outposts -- Bruchin, Rechelim and Sansana -- had no Israeli legal status since being established.

Bruchin has around 350 residents and is located in the northern West Bank, along with Rechelim, which is home to around 240 people. Sansana, home to 240 people, is in the southern West Bank, near Hebron.

The Palestinian presidency described the announcement as its reply to a letter demanding a settlement freeze to renew peace talks.

“The decision on the settlements is the Israeli answer to president (Mahmoud) Abbas’ letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Palestinians’ presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP, adding that it was “expected.”

Abu Rudeina further called on the “Israeli government to immediately cease unilateral actions, especially settlements activity.”

Last week, a Palestinian delegation handed Netanyahu a letter setting out their grievances.

The Palestinian letter, from President Mahmoud Abbas, demanded a halt to Israeli settlement construction on West Bank land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and deplored Israel’s lack of commitment to the peace process.

The Israeli government had committed to the Supreme Court it would regulate the status of the outposts, and Netanyahu on Sunday formed a new four-man ministerial committee to seek legal solutions to the contested projects.

An Israeli official stressed on Tuesday that the committee’s “decision does not change the reality on the ground” nor does it “establish new settlements or expand existing settlements.”

But Hagit Ofran of Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now slammed the government for establishing new settlements in a deceitful way.

“The Israeli government is proving its true policy, that instead of going to peace it is building new settlements,” she told AFP on Tuesday.

“This is the first time since 1990 that the government of Israel decides on establishing new settlements, and the government’s maneuver, of establishing a committee to establish the settlements, is a trick aimed at hiding the true policy from the public.”

Ofran stressed the decision changes the reality on the ground.

“All the years these outposts weren’t legal, the state said they aren’t for real, and now they suddenly are,” she said.

Israel considers settler outposts built without government approval to be illegal, but the international community views all settlements as unlawful, whether approved by the government or not.

Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since September 2010 due to a thorny dispute over Jewish settlement building.

Netanyahu says the future of settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Tuesday denounced Israel’s decision to legalize three settler outposts in the West Bank, during talks with U.S. envoy David Hale.

Jordan, which has a 1994 peace deal with the Jewish state, condemned the “Israeli settlement activities as well as its unilateral measures,” Judeh said at the meeting with Hale, state-run Petra news agency reported on Tuesday.

The minister meanwhile met with families of around 22 Jordanian prisoners in Israeli jails as well as 29 missing people there, after they demonstrated outside the ministry, saying Amman is working “to end the suffering” of the inmates.

“Organizing visits to the Israeli prisons is currently being discussed,” he said without elaborating.

U.S.-sponsored peace talks froze in late 2010 after Netanyahu rejected Palestinian demands that he extend a partial settlement construction freeze he had imposed, at Washington’s behest, to persuade the Palestinians to take part in talks.

About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 war. Palestinians want the territory for an independent state along with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The settlements are considered illegal by the International Court of Justice, the highest U.N. legal body for disputes.

Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank and says the status of settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.