Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has come under fierce attack from Likud and other rightwing circles for dismissing the importance to Israel’s security of two West Bank settlements located near the “green line,” the old boundary between Israel and the administered territories.
Haim Kaufman, chairman of the Likud Knesset faction, accused Rabin, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, of trying to lead Israel back to its pre-1967 borders. Eliahu Ben-Elissar, another influential Likud MK demanded Rabin’s immediate resignation and dissolution of the Labor-Likud unity coalition government.
Even members of Labor Party branches in the West Bank called Rabin’s remarks “ill-conceived.” Furious settlers accused the Defense Minister of anti-Zionism.
The storm broke after Rabin told a meeting of the Labor Party Executive Thursday that the settlements of Alfe-Menashe and Ariel had no more security value than Afule which is located in the Emek, in the heart of Israel. Whether or not his assessment was valid, it was ill-timed.
Alfe-Menashe is in mourning for one of its residents. Ofra Moses, killed in a fire-bomb attack on a car April 11 which severely burned her husband and three children.
The Labor Party Executive endorsed Rabin’s remarks. The Defense Minister himself refused to back off. He told Israel Radio Friday that he had “tried to explain our policy in the territories as I view it.”
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