Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

oPt

Israel Quietly Legalizes Pirate Outposts in the West Bank

The retroactive legalization is seen by anti-settlement groups as a methodical effort by the government to change the map by entrenching the outposts that spread like fingers across it.

By ISABEL KERSHNER

MITZPE DANNY, West Bank — One night in the fall of 1998, a self-professed “outpost entrepreneur” brought three trailers to a rugged hilltop in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and established his first pirate settlement.

Dozens of youthful supporters came to cheer on the entrepreneur, Shimon Riklin, whose wife, newborn and toddler joined him a few days later. A second family also moved in. To their initial surprise, nobody from the military or government came to remove them. “After six months,” Mr. Riklin said in a recent interview, “I understood it was a done deal.”

Read the full article on the New York Times website.