GAZA CITY, March 9, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An Israeli report Wednesday, March 9, slammed Tel Aviv for building scores of illegal West Bank settlements, leaving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon red-faced and raising serious question marks over Israeli pledges to seek peace.

“Transgressing the law has become the norm in several official organs when it comes to rogue settlements,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the report's author Talia Sasson as telling a news conference Wednesday, March 9.

Her report -– though commissioned by Sharon himself -- concluded that government ministries either turned a blind eye to or handed out millions of dollars to help finance and build scores of settlements on the occupied West Bank.

It said that there were 105 wildcat outposts, including 22 established since Sharon, once hailed as a champion of settlers, came to power in March 2001.

Sasson said that parts of 54 wildcat settlements built on state-owned land had strayed into private Palestinian land.

Under the roadmap Middle East peace plan, the government is obliged to dismantle all unauthorized outposts that have been erected in the West Bank since the premier took office.

Sasson, a former justice ministry official, recommended a series of reforms and control checks to end “illegal” practices, which the cabinet is due to discuss at its weekly meeting Sunday, March 13.

“The outposts built on Palestinian land are totally illegal and should be dismantled immediately,” she said.

Asked whether she could prove that the government deliberately orchestrated the expansion, the former justice ministry official said: “I can't say it was organized, but there was some cooperation between the different institutions.”

An aide to Sharon told AFP that the report had been commissioned “to make things clear, particularly with respect to answering American questions” on settlement activity.

“It is up to the prime minister to decide if such and such a recommendation in the report,” said the official.

Sharon and his cabinet turned a blind eye to illegal settlement activities. (Reuters)

In Washington, US President George W. Bush, who is set to host Sharon for talks in April, has firmly rebuked Israel over the settlement building.

“Israel must freeze settlement activity, help the Palestinians build a thriving economy and ensure that a new Palestinian state is truly viable with contiguous territory on the West Bank,” he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also told Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom that his government must abide by its commitments at last month's Middle East peace summit and in the roadmap peace plan.

Shalom reportedly told Rice that Israel had disbanded 90 of the settlement outposts and that “the necessary steps would be taken” in the wake of Sasson's report.

But Sasson herself said no settlement had been evacuated.

Her report also exposed the ideological support for the unauthorized outposts within the government.

“There is also a feeling among officials that they must support the settlers wherever they are,” Sasson said.

Only last week Sharon vowed that settlement activity would continue in the West Bank and Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem), underscoring the potential collision course with chief ally Washington on the outpost question.

Meanwhile, talks on Israel ceding control of West Bank towns to the Palestinian Authority stalled over technicalities Wednesday, while Israel voiced caution after a top Palestinian official said resistance groups were set to observe a formal truce.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had agreed late Tuesday, March 8, that Israel would cede security control of Jericho and then of Tulkarem “in the coming days.”

But less than 24 hours later, follow-up talks between Israeli and Palestinian commanders on securing the process broke down in Jericho.

“We did not reach a final agreement yet,” Haj Ismail Jabr, the top Palestinian security official in the West Bank, told reporters.

The talks would continue on handing over “full authority to the Palestinian Authority in the Jericho area” after further consultations at a political level, he added.

The transfer of security in five West Bank towns -- Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Jericho -- was one of the key issues agreed on last month at a summit in Egypt between Abbas and Sharon.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators shake hands before their Jericho meeting, which ended in failure. (Reuters)

Earlier, Palestinian national security advisor Jibril Rajub declared resistance groups were ready to formally declare a truce with Israel.

“There is a consensus among the Palestinians to stop attacks behind the 'Green Line' (which has separated Israel and the occupied territories since 1967). There is an agreement on this point,” Rajub told Israeli public radio.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP that Rajub had “no right” to speak on behalf of all factions, but that the movement would listen to proposals put forward at the inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo next Tuesday.

Nafez Azzam, a senior Jihad official, also said any such truce would depend on what “Israel will offer in return and so far, it has not kept its promises.”

On Thursday, March 10, Mofaz is set to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, amid warming ties between the two countries after four years of frosty relations over the Palestinian Intifada.