The government was defeated by one vote in the Knesset yesterday on a motion related to it a proposed settlement of Jews in Hebron. Likud Whip Pessach Grupper said later that the vote reflected widespread feeling within the Likud faction against the proposal to settle Jews in the heart of that West Bank Arab town. The motion was not one of confidence and therefore the government’s defeat has no constitutional repercussions.
Labor Party dove Yossi Sarid presented the motion, calling on the government to evacuate the “Hadassah women,” a group of Kiryat Arab women squatters in a Jewish-owned building in Hebron, and urging the government not to settle Jews in other Jewish-owned properties in the city. Sarid argued that Premier Menachem-Begin’s oratory influenced the Cabinet a month ago to affirm the “right in principle” of Jews to live in Hebron. Now, with many ministers firmly opposing actual settlement of Jewish families there, the Premier proposed to “climb halfway down” by suggesting the establishment of a Jewish museum or yeshiva in the city.
“Do not leave us scorched earth,” Sarid declared. He contended that such a policy would provoke Jewish-Arab unrest and harm the peace process.
MOTION CARRIED 36-35
Mordechai Wirshubski of Shai proposed that the motion be transferred to the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. Minister-Without-Portfolio Moshe Nissim, replying for the government, insisted that it be struck off the agenda, altogether. In the vote, several Likud MKs quietly absented themselves from the plenum and the Shai motion was carried by 36-35.
Defending the government’s failure to carry out its own long-standing decision to evacuate the “Hadassah women,” Nissim recalled that the Labor government no had failed to implement decisions they had taken to dismantle West Bank settlements, in particular the settlement of Koddum.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet debate on Hebron resettlement, postponed for several weeks running and last scheduler for next Sunday, is expected to be postponed again. U.S. special Ambassador Sol Linowitz is due here this weekend and will meet with Begin Sunday evening. Under the circumstances, observers noted that Begin will not want either a decision for settlement — want will inevitably draw a stinging U.S. reaction — or a tough dispute in the Cabinet which would inevitably be leaked out before his meetings with the American diplomat.
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