The Cabinet agreed yesterday to expand existing settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to establish new ones, but only on State owned lands. It left the details to a special ministerial committee that is expected to be named within the next few days. It also accepted Defense Minister Ezer Weizman’s proposal of a new site for Elon Moreh, the Cush Emunim settlement that the Supreme Court has ordered removed from seized Arab lands.
The Cabinet session was unusually calm and Premier Menachem Begin was credited with effectively defusing the bitter differences between Weizman and Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon over settlement policy, at least for the time being. Cabinet Secretary Arye Naor told reporters that the decisions were unanimous, indicating that Sharon, the most outspoken advocate of unrestricted Jewish settlements, concurred. According to Naor, the decisions were nothing more than an affirmation of policies adopted earlier by the government.
Sharon’s plan for the establishment of a chain of 16 new settlements on the West Bank during the current Jewish calendar year was rejected. Also rejected was a proposal by Weizman to build six new towns around existing settlements. Sharon’s plan would have required an investment of some IL 2.5 billion and Weizman’s idea was also considered too costly at present.
But the Cabinet agreed to Weizman’s proposal to shift Elon Moreh to a new site on Jabel el Kabir, a little further away from Nablus than the present site. “This is government land and more spacious than the present location,” Naor said. Under the Supreme Court order, Elon Moreh must be removed by Nov. 21.
Weizman met with Gush Emunim leaders and Elon Moreh settlers in Tel Aviv yesterday afternoon. Their conversation reportedly dealt with the ideology of Jewish settlements. There were no indications that the Elon Moreh people would accept the new site or leave the present one without resistance.
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO BE NAMED SOON
Government circles sympathetic to the Gush Emunim said they expected the special ministerial committee to be named without delay so that it can start working on settlement plans well before the Nov. 21 deadline. They said this would demonstrate to the Elon Moreh settlers that the “government means business” in its expanded settlement program. But other government sources denied any linkage between the new committee and the Elon Moreh issue. They said that even if the committee is set up quickly and manages to hold one or two sessions before next week, it could hardly take substantive decisions involving large budgetary outlays in such a short time.
It is believed that the first order of business of the new committee will be to hear detailed reports from Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir on the legal status of the lands earmarked for the expansion of existing settlements and the creation of new ones. The government wants to make sure that these are State owned lands in order to avoid another Elon Moreh fiasco.
While the Cabinet was deliberating yesterday, a large group of Block Panthers forced their way into Elozar settlement in the Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem to protest the financial support given Gush Emunim settlements at the expense of urban slum-dwellers.
About 150 members of the group, which is associated with the Rakah (Communist) Party, arrived at Elozar in buses and managed to break through the strongly guarded perimeter fence. Verbal encounters with the armed settlers soon developed into fist fights. One settler who fired a shot into the air was pounced upon by the Panthers and badly beaten. He suffered head injuries. The Military Governor ordered the area closed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
