Commerce and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon believes the continuing disturbances in the administered territories can be abated if deportation orders against nine Palestinian activists are speedily implemented.
He called for legislation to hasten the judicial expulsion process in an address Sunday to a Herut Party meeting in Jerusalem.
During the meeting, Sharon formally joined the Herut Party’s Jerusalem branch, raising speculation that he may run for mayor of Jerusalem next November at the head of a combined Likud-religious parties ticket.
Speaking on the deportation process, Sharon contended that if it could be completed in a day or two, demonstrations protesting the deportations would end, removing a major source of unrest.
Military review boards in Gaza and Nablus began hearings last week on appeals by the nine Palestinians ordered deported. If these appeals fail, the Palestinians have recourse to Israel’s Supreme Court. Sharon did not make clear whether he favored abolition of the appeals process.
Other members of the Cabinet, such as Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Labor, have expressed the view in recent days that the disturbances in the territories are likely to continue for some time.
Rabin, who received a vote of confidence from the Cabinet Sunday for the defense establishment’s tough response to rioting in the territories, told Tel Aviv high school students Monday that “if there is any explanation for what has been happening during the past month and a half, it is in the feeling of despair and frustration among the Arabs, in the world at large and possibly in Israel itself, which does not indicate any hope for the political process.”
He made similar remarks last Friday in a speech to the Commerce and Industry Club here. He stated that violence in the territories reflects tensions that have been building there for more than 20 years and is not the result of incitement by Palestinian and terrorist organizations.
(Tel Aviv correspondent Hugh Orgel contributed to this report.)
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