Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, outraged at the government’s freeze on new settlements, are seeking the formation of a right-wing shadow government to help promote a drive to fund continued settlement activity.
The daily Yediot Achronot reported Sunday that proposed members of the shadow Cabinet include former Ministers Ariel Sharon and Moshe Katsav, Knesset members Binyamin Netanyahu and Ze’ev (Benny) Begin, and Rabbi Haim Druckman, a former Knesset member.
The settlers said they would establish contacts with Diaspora Jewry and with foreign governments as part of an overseas information campaign.
Despite government curtailment of construction in the territories, work continues without interruption at such sites as Eli, Talmon, Shiloh and Beit El in the Samaria region of the West Bank, they said.
Meanwhile, Rafael Eitan, leader of the rightwing opposition Tsomet party, charged in an Israeli army radio interview over the weekend that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had sold Israel in exchange for U.S. loan guarantees, foreclosing any possibility of his party’s joining the coalition.
Rabin had met with Eitan prior to his departure for the United States, leading to speculation that negotiations with Tsomet on joining the government would resume on his return.
But a day after the prime minister arrived home from Washington, Eitan vetoed continued negotiations with Labor.
“Even the Turks, the British and the Arabs failed to prevent Jewish settlement, while Rabin and his government are doing everything possible to interrupt settlement in Eretz Yisrael,” he said.
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