International Secret settlements plan shakes Israeli Cabinet

Press, 15 August 1978, Page 8

International Secret settlements plan shakes Israeli Cabinet

iNZPA-Reuter Jerusalem A row has broken out among Israeli Cabinet Ministers over plans for five new settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley and now the project may be stalled while Israel prepares for summit talks with Egypt and the United States at Camp David next month.

The row broke on Sunday when the Government announced that a Ministerial defence committee had decided on the plans seven weeks ago. Leaders of established settlements said later i they had been asked to reI cruit volunteers for the proiject.

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Yigael Yadin), head of the Democratic Movement for Change, opposed the proposal at the time and on Sunday said he would ask the Cabinet to discuss the plans when it meets next i Sunday.

The established settlement leaders have also said they felt th< project should not be implemented while peace talks continue. They said that when the j Agriculture Minister (Mr i Ariel Sharon), an outspoken

advoca e of large-scale settlement, had asked them two

weeks ago to recruit volunteers, they had believed the plans had had Government backing. The defence committee’s decision came before President Carter invited the Prime Ministei (Mr Menachem Begin) and the Egyptian President (Mr Anwar Sadat) to go to Camp David in Maryland for talks.

Rumours of the plans had circulated for weeks, but were kept out of th? press through censorship. Opposition members of the Knesset (Parliament) have complained of military censorship being used to prevent publication of news of such plans.

The Labour Party said on Sunday it was considering calling for Knesset members to be recalled from their summer holiday to debate the settlement issue. The United States has asked both Egypt and Israel to prepare a full picture of the topics to be studied at next month’s Camp David meeting, the semi-official Egyptian newspaper, “AlAhram” said yesterday. The paper said the United States would keep in touch with Egypt and Israel over

the coming two weeks to 'Urystailise all these ideas in a working paper which the United States will study with the two sides to lay down the final visualisation of how talks could be conducted in the Camp David summit.”

President Carter said on Sunday the United States was willing to make compromise proposals at the summit.

In an interview Mr Carter also said he was aware of the political, perils he could

face if his September 5 meeting with Mr Begin and President Sadat fails to produce positive results. “The stakes are so high that I’m perfectly willing to risk adverse political consequences in the hope that we might make progress in establishing a framework for peace,” the President said. In his first disclosure of the stand he will take at the meeting at Camp David, Mr Carter described his role as that of an active mediator. While the United States would not attempt to impose a settlement Mr Carter said: “If we see some possibility of an acceptable compromise, we would certainly take that assessment to both Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat and say, ‘This is a possibility. Would you accept it’.” Mr Carter said that calling the meeting was a decision he had approached with great caution. “If the summit should fail then I would be associated personally — as the President of our country — with failure.

“The political consequences of that are obvious.”