$300M plan to settle W. Bank

Press, 28 December 1979, Page 6

$300M plan to settle W. Bank

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem Israeli leaders hope to spend $3OO million in the next fiscal year on building Jewish settlements on Arab land, officials in Jerusalem have said. Government Ministers and the World Zionist Organisation had approved plans at a meeting on Christmas Day to more than double the Jewish population Of the West Bank of the Jordan to 36,000 in the next 18 months if they can raise the required 10.000 million Israeli pounds ($3BO million), the officials said.

The Agriculture Minister (Mr Ariel Sharon), who is in charge of Jewish settlements in occupied Arab territories, and the Housing Minister (Mr David Levi) will ask the Finance Minister (Mr Yigal Hurwitz) to provide the money, the officials said. The present settlement budget is three billion Israeli pounds ($B5 million), or less than a third of the sum demanded for next year. A Finance Ministry official told reporters: “Billions (of pounds) don’t frighten anyone today.” However, he said it was still too early to say whether the requested money would be forthcoming.

The settlement plan calls for 6200 housing units to be built in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. But most are planned for the West Bank, (where it is hoped to settle about 20,000 more Jews. The present Jewish population is about 16,000.

The Arab population of the region is one million. A spokesman for the W.Z.O. settlement department rejected claims that there were not enough volunteers to live in the planned houses. The settlement plan has been disclosed at a time when Israel plans to cut its over-all budget because of economic problems and is asking the United States for $3400 million in economic and military aid for 1980, nearly double this j ear’s figure.

The chairman of the Knesset (Parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee (Professor Moshe Arens) expressed concern yesterday about reported cuts in United States aid to Israel. He told a radio interviewer that even if Washington fulfilled all its financial commitments, Israel would bear an intolerable economic burden under the (terms of the peace treaty with Egypt.