So why are they stressing the Mayor of London?

Report Shows Israeli Support for West Bank Settlements
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, March 8 - A long-awaited report into Israeli government support for illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, formally delivered to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today, describes widespread state complicity, fraud and cynicism, illegal diversion of government money and illegal seizure of private Palestinian land.

The report, which was written under American pressure, finished in early January and withheld until now, accuses the government of Mr. Sharon and previous Israeli governments of "blatant violations of the law" and complicity in helping settlers construct illegal outposts in violation of stated Israeli government policy. The report describes almost a state within a state, devoted to promoting illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

"No one seriously intends to enforce the law," says the report, written by Talia Sasson, a former chief state prosecutor. "It seems as if the violation of the law has become institutional and institutionalized. There is blatant violation of the law by certain state authorities, public authorities, regional councils" in the West Bank "and the settlers," Ms. Sasson writes, according to excerpts published today by the Israeli daily Maariv. "Everything is done for appearances' sake, as if a regulated institutional establishment were acting within the confines of the law."

The conclusions of the report, which will be released in full on Wednesday, are no surprise, and confirm accusations made for years by Peace Now, the dovish Israeli citizen's lobby, and less publicly by the United States Embassy here. Mr. Sharon commissioned the report in June 2004 after accusations that his government was not keeping its promises to Washington to freeze settlement activity and dismantle illegal settler outposts in the West Bank set up after March 2001.