Two West Bank Settlements Approve

The Cabinet approved the establishment of two new settlements on the West Bank today, at Eilon Moreh and Shiloh. But a number of ministers expressed reservations, and the three members of the Democratic Movement, Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin, Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir and Minister of Social Betterment Yisrael Katz, opposed the decision.

Speaking for his colleagues, Yadin said “I oppose the Cabinet decision for two reasons. One relates to the well known differences of opinion between my party and the majority of the government. We oppose additional settlements in already populated areas of the West Bank. The second reason is that the approval of the settlements is a surrender to facts imposed by the Gush Emunim and does not represent a decision initiated by the government.”

Yadin said he supported the establishment of settlements on the West Bank for security reasons but stressed that this was not the case with Eilon Moreh and Shiloh. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan warned that the establishment of these settlements would involve the expropriation of privately owned Arab land near Nablus.

On those grounds, Minister of Commerce and Industry Gideon Patt and Minister-Without-Porttolio Moshe Nissim abstained from voting. The Cabinet majority promised that that aspect of the project would be examined thoroughly before the decision is implemented. Yadin noted in his remarks that the Ministerial Defense Committee had agreed last week that the establishment of new settlements will no longer be decided on in secret session but subject to a ” public parliamentary debate.”

BONN — In an address marking the 36th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Heinz Galinski, chairman of the Berlin Jewish community, proposed that in West Germany, as in the United States, a day be set aside in memory of the victims of Nazism, Galinski said the annual observance was “very useful” for the youth in the United States and asked “would it not be good to follow this example in the German republic ?”