Netanyahu forms special committee to study controversial settlement report

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he would have a ministerial committee study a new report which gives legal backing to the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.

The report by a committee headed by former Supreme Court jurist Edmond Levy, which was released Monday, called for the government to legalize outposts and to ease restrictions on building settlements.

“I will bring the report to a ministerial committee for settlements which I am setting up, and which will issue an appraisal of the report,” the Prime Minister said, adding that he and his colleagues would study the recommendations seriously.

The 89-page legal opinion had been written at Netanyahu’s behest.

“I appreciate the quiet work of the committee very much,” Netanyahu said.

The report has already provoked controversy, drawing sharp criticism from human rights groups and left-wing politicians, and praise from right-wing officials, who have called for its findings to be adopted by the government.

If endorsed, the recommendations could give Netanyahu ammunition to support new settlement activity and fend off pressure from a Supreme Court that has ordered the government to take action against the existing outposts.

Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib denounced the report’s conclusions.

“This is in complete contradiction with international law and with specific resolutions of the United Nations … and in contradiction with the official policy of almost every single country in the world,” Khatib said. “We also think that such positions contradict the international efforts to establish peace based on two states, one of them in the territories occupied in 1967.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.