Gush Emunim Plans to Set Up 40 New West Bank Settlements

In a coordinated strategy to disrupt the Middle East peace process, the Gush Emunim settlers movement is planning to establish 40 new settlements in the West Bank, according to a report Wednesday in the Israeli daily Ma’ariv.

The plan, which was to have been a secret coup, would negate any kind of autonomy plan Israel might offer Palestinians in the course of peace talks.

The program entails creating settlements through its Amana settlement movement, Ma’ariv reported.

Gush activists freely admit their plan is intended to frustrate the government’s peace moves, to “strengthen our hold on the area and pre-empt any plans to implement an autonomy scheme,” a Gush spokesman said.

Gush Emunim remains convinced that any degree of autonomy would lead to creation of a Palestinian state.

Amana leaders are said to have targeted about a quarter million acres of government land in the West Bank, of which an unsettled 150,000 acres would be carved up into 40 new villages.

Gush Emunim developed the scheme in cooperation with the West Bank Jewish settlers council. But according to Ma’ariv, differences have arisen between them.

The West Bank council, aware of the logistical and financial problems attending what was to have been a secret project, was planning to proceed cautiously Ma’ariv reported.

Amana wanted to move swiftly, before the talks between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states develop into serious discussions.

Amana says it has already assembled 10 new settler groups eagerly waiting to move into the area.

It was planning a secret, nighttime operation, reminiscent of pioneer Jewish settlers in Palestine in the 1930s and early 1940s, who erected illegal tower-and-stockade settlements overnight, under the noses of the British Mandate authorities.

But the West Bank council prefers to avoid a confrontation with the government.

AN EMBARRASSMENT TO SHAMIR?

Disclosure of the secret plans is likely to embarrass Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in an election year, at a time Israel is desperately seeking multibillion dollar U.S. loan guarantees to resettle new immigrants.

Shamir, in fact, is walking a tightrope.

He wants to avoid antagonizing Washington, which has linked the loan guarantees to a freeze of Israel’s settlement-building program. At the same time, he does not want to alienate West Bank settlers and their supporters, who are a core constituency of Likud.

According to Ma’ariv, confidential information was supplied to Shamir by the Central Bureau of Statistics documenting 9,000 building starts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1991, in addition to 2,500 caravans and mobile homes set up in the territories.

Scores of new caravans were sent to the Samaria region in the past few days to enlarge existing settlements.

The figures represent a substantial increase over 1990, when there were no more than 1,600 building starts in the territories.

Jewish militants continue to encroach on Silwan, an Arab village within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, where they have already occupied Arab homes they say once belonged to Jews.

In addition, they are reportedly planning to build 200 housing units for Jews on a large plot bordering the village.

Meanwhile, a clash is developing between two government ministries.

By order of the West Bank Civil Administration, controlled by Defense Minister Moshe Arens, work was halted Tuesday on a 7.5-mile road serving Jewish settlements, which was ordered built by Housing Minister Ariel Sharon in the Samaria region of the West Bank.

The purpose of the road is to bypass Arab villages west of the settlement of Ariel.

The civil administration says planning of the new route is incomplete and the legal ownership of the land has not been established.

The regional Council of Jewish Settlements denounced the ruling.