Post Star · 22 February 1978

CP-1978-027

Israelis Split On Settlements

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Transcribed from the clipping

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Israeli military censor ordered the rephrasing of parts of this story. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Israeli cabinet is divided over whether to press on with Jewish settlement on occupied Arab land, a split apparently widened by American censure of the settlements in recent months, sources reported Tuesday.

The sources said two rival camps have been taking shape lately — one led by Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who wants to freeze settlement projects, and the other by Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, who is calling for construction of many new outposts in the territories.

Weizman has considerable support among the 19 ministers in the cabinet, some of whom were shaken by the vehemence with which the Carter administration has criticized the settlements, the sources said. The debate, which began at a special cabinet meeting Monday, was adjourned until next Sunday, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin remained neutral, the sources said.

The cabinet met as a ministerial security committee — a format from which, under Israeli law, no details may be reported. The split threw into doubt a proposal by the Jewish Agency, which finances the settlements, to build 31 new outposts in occupied land over the next four years. There now are 94 settlements.

If Weizman gets his way, the plan could remain on the drawing boards for a long time. Weizman is known to feel that the establishment of new settlements hampered his negotiations with Egyptian authorities last month for an agreement on the future of the Sinai Peninsula.

He wants to freeze all existing settlements, halt the expansion of outposts in northeast Sinai, where 3,500 Israelis live in a dozen farm communities, and restrict the government to “thickening” settlements in the West Bank of the Jordan River without building new ones, the sources reported.

How this transcription was made

Full article transcribed from 4x and 5x crops of both columns; it ends cleanly at the foot of the clipping, where the first line of an unrelated following headline begins. Nothing graphic to summarize. A pen or pencil stroke crosses the lower left column of the scan without obscuring any word. — No masthead and no folio on this clipping — the crop begins at the top of the headline and ends in the first line of the next story's headline. Nothing on the page identifies the paper. Maria's label is carried over unverified. — No date line on the clipping. Internal evidence gives only a day of the week: the split was "sources reported Tuesday," and the cabinet debate "began at a special cabinet meeting Monday, was adjourned until next Sunday." A Wednesday paper reporting Tuesday sources fits; February 22, 1978 was a Wednesday, so Maria's label is consistent with the page but is not confirmed by it.

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