Haaretz: "The report that the ministry of defense is hiding:

Haaretz: "Construction without permission in most of the settlements.”

It seems that Haaretz selectively translates some of their stories, ignoring those that could be too offensive to their US readers. This story in Haaretz (hebrew ONLY) by Uri Blaumat, did not appear in the English version. Our friend Nir Rosen was kind enough to translate it grosso modo for us:

"...Haaretz obtained secret ministry of defense data that is defined as “political dynamite.” The data is hidden for fear that it can damage the state’s security and its foreign relations..Three out of four settlements in the west bank have construction without authorization or in opposition to authorization and in many settlements buildings and infrastructure was constructed on Palestinian land.

The ministry of defense began collecting the information four years ago because it needed reliable and easily accessible information to allow it to deal with lawsuits relating to construction in the settlements..The information collected was defined as “political dynamite” and the ministry of defense led by minister of defense ehud barak decided to prevent its publicity out of fear of damaging the state’s security and foreign relations

The information, which relates to all the settlements and not just the “unlawful” ones will be published for the first time in the weekend issue of haaretz

According to the information, in more than thirty settlements, including some of the oldest and most established ones, homes, schools, synagogues, roads and even police stations were built on private Palestinian land. The most sensitive part is called building without authorized plans in which are detailed the scope of construction without permission...According to the information, for example, in the settlement of Ofra, most of the construction on the settlement is on private land, without legal basis. The local municipality itself is built on private Palestinian land...'