JERUSALEM: The Israeli government has decided to put off for the time being its promised evacuation of the largest Jewish wildcat settlement in the occupied West Bank, media reported on Friday.
The defense ministry told the High Court the Migron settlers – about 200 people living on private Palestinian land – can stay until new homes are built for them on public land 2 km away at a date yet to be determined.
Both anti-settler activists and some right-wingers slammed the announcement.
The government caved in to settlers who threatened to use violence if they are evacuated while they illegally occupy private Palestinian land, said Yariv Oppenheimer of the Peace Now group, which had filed a petition before the High Court seeking the evacuation.
In January the government told the court it would evacuate Migron by August.
The government s new plan to move the settlers later has the backing of the main West Bank settlers organization, but the Migron residents and some right-wingers reject it.
The thought of evacuating Migron is against the Torah and basic human morals, the Committee of Settler Rabbis said, according to the Yediot Aharonot daily.
Some ultra-orthodox Jews believe they have a divine mission to settle the whole of the Biblical land of Israel, including the Palestinian territories.
But other right-wingers believe that the Migron settlers would benefit from the legal recognition they would get by moving.
Migron is the largest of some 100 wildcat settlement outposts dotted around the West Bank that were erected without Israeli government authorization.
Most consist of just a few trailers but Migron has several houses, dozens of mobile homes, a synagogue, a ritual bath, a kindergarten and greenhouses.
The international community regards all West Bank settlements as illegal, regardless of whether they were built with Israeli authorization.
Washington has exerted particular pressure on Israel to dismantle the wildcat outposts.
More than 260,000 Israelis are estimated to live in government-authorized settlements across the West Bank, with another 200,000 living in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem. -AFP
