The Israeli peace movement Peace Now published a report on the expansion of some two dozen illegal settlements asserting that in spite of the fact that the number of outposts declined in 2003, their infrastructure has actually increased.

The report, which was included in the group’s annual survey of outposts, was the direct cause behind the Israeli occupation’s civil administration admitting it had in fact given the go-ahead for the development and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, which the Israeli government allegedly sought to dismantle.

The report came at an ominous time for the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who just yesterday presented the principles of his unilateral disengagement plan to four top American envoys, including the State Department’s William Burns.

Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer noted what he called an intolerable paradox in Sharon’s plans.

“Sharon talks about evacuating the Gaza settlements and is coordinating this potentially historic move with the Bush administration, but at the same time he is deepening Israel’s grip on the West Bank,” Oppenheimer stressed.

According to the report, 12 new settlements were linked to the central electrical grid, another eight linked by paved roads to the West Bank’s major arteries, while permanent structures were also being constructed in many settlements, including several which were slated for evacuation.

Twelve outposts, including four in the vicinity of the illegal settlement of Itamar, were connected to the electrical grid. Roads were paved for another 11 outposts.

Some 34 settlements made “significant extensions” in the past year, despite Sharon’s promise to freeze settlement-growth, as stipulated by the US-engineered, internationally-endorsed “roadmap” to peace.

Consequently, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Finance Committee allocated 96 million Shekels ($22 million) for the development of settlements, an allocation that was considered highly controversial by the 2003 Peace Now report.

On the other hand, and in what analysts consider a settler response to Sharon’s disengagement plan, hawkish lawmakers proposed their own visions of a solution to the conflict.

Three main plans were presented, the first by Effi Eitam, the leader of the extremist, pro-settler National Religious Party, which concludes that areas of Gaza would be joined with Egypt and West Bank residents would be joined with neighboring Jordan. The plan further stipulates that Palestinians who decide to remain under Israeli control would not have the right to vote.

Regarding the second plan, National Union leader Avigdor Lieberman proposed fencing the Palestinians into four West Bank severed enclaves.

Lastly, another National Union lawmaker proposed giving the Palestinians control over some Arab towns inside Israel in exchange for illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

All these plans are considered unrealistic to Palestinians, who are adhering to the “roadmap” peace plan, which envisions the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 on all territory occupied by Israel in 1967.