Dulzin Said WZO Awaiting Government Orders to Build Gush Settlement

Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, said today that the WZO would immediately obey any instructions the government gave regarding construction of Alon Moreh, the controversial Gush Emunim settlement on the West Bank near Nablus. His position, stated to reporters after the weekly meeting of the WZO Executive today, overruled Raonan Weitz, co-chairman of the WZO’s settlement department, who appealed against the decision to proceed with the work at Alon Moreh.

Weitz argued that the objective conditions — the nature of the land and the available water supply at the site — made it unsuitable as an agricultural settlement. Weitz has long opposed the government’s policy of planting settlements in heavily Arab-populated areas of the West Bank and has argued instead that the focus of settlement activity should be in the Jordan Valley where security interests are best served. His position has brought him into collision with his settlement department co-chairman Matityahu Drobless of Herut, an advocate of massive Jewish colonization of the occupied territories. Drobless accused Weitz, a labor Party member, of opposing Alon Moreh for political, not professional reasons.

Dulzin today appeared to disregard their argument. He said, however, that before the WZO begins work on the site, it must have clear instructions from the government as to whether Alon Moreh is to be a “rural” settlement, which would come within the purview of the settlement department, or an “urban” settlement that would make it the responsibility of the Housing Ministry. He indicated that the WZO’s bulldozers would move only after a decision is taken to classify Alon Moreh as “rural” if that is the government’s intention.