Israel Must Crack Down on Lawless Settlers

The settler leaders' lawless behavior after the decision to temporarily and partially freeze settlement construction in the West Bank reminds us of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's metaphor of a "villa in the jungle" to describe Israel's place in the region. Only a few kilometers from Tel Aviv, the laws of democracy give way to the law of the jungle. Once again it turns out that only an ultra-thin layer separates the rebels and tree cutters in the illegal outposts from the core of the settler establishment.

The heads of the settlements' local councils, who receive their salaries from the public coffers to enforce the law, have taken the lead in the fight against the government. Senior public officials who block Civil Administration inspectors from entering their settlements and who threaten to continue building during the freeze are acting as if they were on their own private estates. This is why Talia Sasson, in her March 2005 report on the outposts, described the regional-council heads as the "moving force" behind the establishment and development of illegal outposts; her recommendations have still not been implemented.