Tables - Israel’s “Creeping Annexation” Policies

Since its inception, the West Bank settlement enterprise has involved actions by settlers – including land seizures and construction – that violate Israeli law (all settlement construction is illegal under international law). Successive Israeli governments have consistently sought to bring unauthorized outposts and illegal settlement construction into good (or more secure) standing in the eyes of Israeli law. Such efforts hit an obstacle, however, when the 2005 Sasson Report, commissioned by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, concluded that "There is no way to validate the establishment of an outpost on private Palestinian property, not even post factum. Such outposts must be evacuated, the sooner the better.”