US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV1853

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 001853 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/25/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, KWBG, IS, SETTLEMENTS, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS, GOI INTERNAL 
SUBJECT: SASSON:  OUTPOST PICTURE "SO HORRIBLE, I DIDN'T 
UNDERSTAND IT" 
 
REF: A. TEL AVIV 01524 
     B. TEL AVIV 01430 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  Talia Sasson told emboffs that she 
encountered significant resistance to her information 
requests from government ministries when doing research for 
her report on unauthorized outposts.  She explained on March 
16 that the Settlements Division of the World Zionist 
Organization refused to give her the data she requested, and 
that some information from the Ministry of Construction and 
Housing later turned out to be wrong.  Despite these 
obstacles, Sasson determined that the outposts picture is 
"horrible," and that there are at least 105 outposts.  She 
also described an "open conspiracy" where settlers build 
outposts without approvals, and the IDF often ignores 
demolition orders approved by the High Court because there is 
no political will to enforce them.  Prime Minister Ariel 
Sharon formed a ministerial committee on March 13 to review 
Sasson's recommendations on how to deal with the outposts, 
and Sasson will be meeting with the committee over the next 
three months to give them more context on her findings and 
suggestions.  End Summary. 
 
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Tough Job for One Person 
------------------------ 
 
2.  (C) The author of the report on GOI support for 
unauthorized outposts, Talia Sasson, told Economic Counselor 
and econoff on March 16 that she did not have any resources 
to help her do research for her report on outposts.  She 
worked alone, mentioning that she was not authorized funds to 
hire any support staff.  If Sasson had hired someone to help 
her, she would have had to pay out of her own pocket for the 
staff's salaries and expenses. 
 
3.  (C) Sasson also said that she ran up against a great deal 
of resistance from the ministries and agencies from whom she 
requested information.  Only staff at the Ministry of Defense 
(MOD), Ministry of Construction and Housing (MOCH), and the 
Settlements Division (SD) of the World Zionist Organization 
agreed to interviews, and even then, the SD refused to give 
her the data she requested despite constant letters and phone 
calls.  The MOCH was also very resistant in the beginning, 
but it provided some information when Yitzhak Herzog became 
Minister.  Sasson said, however, that the MOCH recently told 
her that the data it gave her may be wrong, and that it is 
double-checking its figures.  In response to econoff's 
question, Sasson reported that there were probably other 
ministries involved in supporting the outposts even though 
she did not talk to any of their staff.  She speculated that 
the Ministries of Education, Tourism, Infrastructure, 
Agriculture, and others had provided help to the outposts in 
the past. 
 
------------------------------ 
How Much Money Did They Spend? 
------------------------------ 
 
4.  (C) Sasson stated that she could not estimate how much 
the GOI had spent on unauthorized outposts.  She said she had 
not received any funding information from any ministry 
besides MOCH, and she was convinced that even these figures 
were understated.  Sasson told EconCouns that she had 
incorporated everything she knew about GOI expenditures into 
the report and had no additional figures.  After reviewing 
Sasson's report, Embassy assesses the MOCH spent at least $25 
million on outposts between 2000-2004. 
 
------------------ 
How Many Outposts? 
------------------ 
 
5.  (C) Sasson said that she counted at least 105 outposts. 
She characterized 71 as pre-March 2001 outposts and 24 as 
post-March 2001 outposts, but she could not determine the 
date of the establishment of the 10 others.  Sasson opined 
that there are probably more than 105 outposts total but she 
did not know if that meant there was one more or twenty more. 
 In response to econoff's question, Sasson replied that she 
determined the date of establishment from documents she 
received from the MOD.  She was not aware that the GOI's 
figures on outposts are different from the USG's figures 
(note:  the USG counts 55 pre-March 2001 outposts and 45 
post-March 2001 outposts.  End note). 
 
------------------------ 
Building and Demolishing 
------------------------ 
 
6.  (C) Sasson continued that she did not know why settlers 
picked the locations they did to establish outposts.  She 
noted, however, that they did not worry about getting any 
approvals prior to moving their trailers into position.  In 
her research, she determined that the settlers simply built 
outposts, let them grow and become established, and then got 
the approvals after the fact.  On her findings that some 
outposts were built on private Palestinian land, Sasson 
commented that sometimes it was difficult to prove the land 
in fact belonged to Palestinians because they often did not 
have titles to it.  She said, however, that some of the land 
the outposts was built on was clearly not State land, so the 
outposts are illegal regardless because the GOI cannot build 
on anything other than State land in the territories. 
 
7.  (C) On demolitions, Sasson assessed that the IDF would 
not demolish any outposts without direct orders from PM 
Sharon, even if the High Court approved the demolition 
orders.  She said she thought that "political reasons" 
prevented the Prime Minister from evacuating any outposts. 
Therefore, the result is that the IDF ignores court orders to 
demolish outposts issued by the MOD because these orders do 
not have any backing from the GOI.  Sasson characterized this 
as an "open conspiracy." 
 
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The Ministerial Committee and Looking Ahead 
------------------------------------------- 
 
8.  (C) Sasson said that Sharon had wanted to adopt her 
report right away, and that the idea of forming a ministerial 
committee instead came from Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. 
She explained that Mazuz wanted Sharon's Cabinet to 
understand Sasson's recommendations, to think about them 
carefully, and to consider how to implement them.  When asked 
if Mazuz was sincere or simply stalling until disengagement 
came around and everyone would forget about her report, 
Sasson replied that she was confident that Mazuz wants the 
committee members to really understand her recommendations 
and how to implement them. (Comment:  Sasson implied that, 
since the GOI knew what was in her report before she 
published it, Israeli officials would not have let her 
publish the document in the first place if they intended to 
deep-six it later.  End comment.)  However, she opined that, 
while the committee is probably not trying to figure out a 
way to ignore her report, she was not sure exactly what they 
would do with it.  Sasson also said that she will be meeting 
with the committee members over the next three months to give 
them more context on her findings and recommendations. 
 
9.  (C) When econoff asked Sasson when the final report would 
be published since her report was termed "interim," she 
responded that this was actually the final report and that 
she is not doing any more research.  Sasson explained that 
she called it "interim" because she did not want people to 
think that "this is the whole story."  She said, "the whole 
picture is so horrible, I didn't understand it." 
 
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