Disingenuously, Israeli officials argue that the policy would end "discrimination" against the settlers. An army legal adviser, Tzvi Mintz, noted recently: "A ban on making real-estate deals based on national origin raises a certain discomfort."
Approving the privatisation of the settlements is a far more significant move than it might sound.
International law states that an occupier can take action in territories under occupation on only two possible grounds: out of military necessity or to benefit the local population. With the settlements obviously harming local Palestinians by depriving them of land and free movement, Israel disguised its first colonies as military installations.
It went on to seize huge swathes of the West Bank as "state lands" meaning for Jews only on the pretext of military needs. Civilians were transferred there with the claim that they bolstered Israel's national security.
That is why no one has contemplated allowing the settlers to own the land they live on until now. Instead it is awarded by military authorities, who administer the land on behalf of the Israeli state.
That is bad enough. But now defence ministry officials want to upend the definition in international law of the settlements as a war crime. Israel's thinking is that, once the settlers become the formal owners of the land they were given illegally, they can be treated as the "local population".
Israel will argue that the settlers are protected under international law just like the Palestinians. That would provide Israel with a legal pretext to annex the West Bank, saying it benefits the "local" settler population.
And by turning more than 600,000 illegal settlers into landowners, Israel can reinvent the occupation as an insoluble puzzle. Palestinians seeking redress from Israel for the settlements will instead have to fight an endless array of separate claims against individual settlers.
This proposal follows recent moves by Israel to legalise many dozens of so-called outposts, built by existing settlements to steal yet more Palestinian land. As well as violating international law, the outposts fall foul of Israeli law and undertakings made under the Oslo accords not to expand the settlements.
All of this is being done in the context of a highly sympathetic administration in Washington that, it is widely assumed, is preparing to approve annexation of the West Bank as part of a long-postponed peace plan.
The current delay has been caused by Mr Netanyahu's failure narrowly in two general elections this year to win enough seats to form a settler-led government. Israel might now be heading to a third election.
Officials and the settlers are itching to press ahead with formal annexation of nearly two-thirds of the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu promised annexation in the run-up to both elections. Settler leaders, meanwhile, have praised the new army chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, as sympathetic to their cause.
Expectations have soared among the settlers as a result. Their impatience has fuelled a spike in violence, including a spate of recent attacks on Israeli soldiers sent to protect them as the settlers confront and assault Palestinians beginning the annual olive harvest.
Mr Lynk, the UN's expert, has warned that the international community needs to act swiftly to stop the occupied territories becoming a permanent Israeli settler state. Sadly, there are few signs that foreign governments are listening.
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