[A-List] Israel: bankrupt morally & financially

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Israel spending £27,000 a month on protection for lone settler
By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem
The Independent
02 April 2003

A Jewish settler living alone on a hill in the West Bank is being guarded by
six Israeli soldiers. The cost is about £27,000 a month, an opposition
member of parliament says.

The outpost is unauthorised and illegal, and Ariel Sharon, the Prime
Minister, has promised to investigate.

The newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the six soldiers, who are performing the
reserve duty all men are obliged to fulfil every year until their forties,
were so unhappy that they clubbed together and offered to pay for the
settler, Yossi Ayalon, to move to a hotel in Israel. He refused.

The case has put into sharp focus the divisions in Israeli society over the
Jewish settlers, who live in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in
settlements that are illegal under international law.

Many Israelis resent being forced, during their compulsory military service,
to guard settlements from attack by Palestinian militants - more so because
some ultra-Orthodox settlers refuse to do military service for religious
reasons.

Most Israelis support dismantling some of the settlements as part of a peace
deal, according to recent polls. The settlements are one of the biggest
obstacles to a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. America has urged
Israel to stop building settlements, but under Mr Sharon their number has
increased.

As well as the settlements officially sanctioned by the Israeli authorities,
there are "illegal outposts" set up without a government licence. They are
collections of trailers and huts on remote West Bank hilltops - Mr Ayalon is
believed to be living in one of these. They are set up by the most
ideological of settlers. When Israeli soldiers tried to close one last year,
they were attacked by the settlers.

. Israel would seek changes in the Middle East peace plan due to be
published soon by the United States, Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign
Minister, said yesterday after talks in Washington with President George
Bush. Mr Shalom laid down a number of conditions for the resumption of talks
between Israel and the Palestinians and said "the road-map needs to be
adapted".

The Israeli opposition leader, Amram Mitzna, and Palestinian officials said
the comments showed that Israel was, in effect, rejecting the plan, a
three-stage programme to achieve Palestinian statehood by 2005.