fanatic

By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem
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.