The government obtained the voluntary evacuation of Sebastia today by agreeing to permit a token number of would-be settlers to remain in the Samaria region under military authority and to reopen the issue of unrestricted Jewish settlement on the West Bank by the Cabinet in two or three months.
The compromise, which averted a confrontation between the army and some 2000 illegal squatters at Sebastia in central Samaria, was reached today between Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Rabbi Moshe Levenberg, leader of a deputation representing the militant Orthodox Gush Emunim movement. It was in line with yesterday’s Cabinet decision that reaffirmed the government’s policy to permit no settlements in the administered territories without official authorization.
But while the government achieved its immediate aim of avoiding the use of force to remove the squatters–a politically dangerous action in the present climate of bitterness over the string of diplomatic defeats suffered by Israel at the United Nations–the Gush Emunim appeared to have gained a victory. The squatters, who set up a makeshift tent village on the barren site eight days ago, will leave this afternoon. But some 30 families will be settled at a nearby army camp with freedom to come end go as they please and jobs provided by the army.
SIMILARITIES WITH KIRYAT ARBA
There was no undertaking by the government to transform the army camp into a settlement at a later date. The Gush Emunim, who combine religious zealotry with intense nationalism, have nevertheless gained a foothold in Samaria, the northern district of the West Bank, much as they did some years ago at Hebron in Judaea to the south.
Rabbi Levenberg, leader of the Orthodox community of Kiryat Arba which adjoins Hebron, commented on the parallel between today’s compromise and the events that led up to the establishment of Kiryat Arba which also had its start as an illegal squatters’ movement.
He recalled that the original Kiryat Arba settlers were required to live for a time within a military government compound but eventually the government agreed to build an all-Jewish quarter next to Arab Hebron, Levenberg intimated that he expects the same sequence of events to occur in Samaria. According to some sources, Gen. Ariel Sharon, a former Likud leader and currently special advisor to Premier Yitzhak Rabin, persuaded the settlers to accept the compromise which was said to have been the idea of the Israeli poet, Chaim Goory.
Meanwhile, Arab anger over the compromise was manifested by violent demonstrations today in Nablus the largest town in the Samaria district, Security forces used water hoses and fired into the air to disperse the demonstrators.
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