Israel to swap West bank outpost for new units

Israel has approved construction of 50 new housing units in a West Bank settlement to absorb settlers who are to be evicted from a nearby unauthorized outpost, according to a court document obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.
Israel's settlement construction has been an irritant in its relations with the Obama administration, which wants building to stop completely as part of efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians.
Israel is sending its defense minister, Ehud Barak, to Washington on Monday to try to ease the growing tension with the U.S. and attempt to work out a compromise.
According to a Defense Ministry document submitted to the Supreme Court, the government has approved construction of 50 new apartments in the settlement of Adam to house squatters living in the nearby Migron outpost.
The construction is to be part of a far more sweeping plan _ not yet approved _ to build 1,450 new apartments in Adam, north of Jerusalem.
Migron is one of more than 100 settler encampments built without government authorization, in this case on privately owned Palestinian land. Although these outposts were not formally authorized, the government has linked them to electricity and water grids and provided them with roads and security.
The government has done little to fulfill a promise to knock down about two dozen of the outposts, which it is required to do under a six-year-old U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map."
Settlers erected outposts beginning in the early 1990s to expand the Jewish presence in the West Bank, territory the Palestinians want for part of their future state.
The government was responding to a Supreme Court appeal submitted by Palestinians who own the land on which Migron sits.