Secret settlements plan

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 6

Secret settlements plan

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem Israeli planners _ have drawn up a confidential programme to increase the Jewish presence in the occupied Jordan West Bank by setting up 85 new settlements there in the. next five years, sources in the World Zionist Organisation said yesterday. ,The plan was drawn up by Matityahii Drobless, cochairman- of the organisation’s settlement department which is responsible fdr. setting up new jewish outposts in occupied Arab territories. It was presented to the Israeli Cabi.net-jn'March. It estimates l that by the end of T 985 the Jewish population of the West Bank will have risen from today’s

14,000 to between 120,000 and 150,000. Mr Drobless’s ’ document, shown to an NZPA-Reuter correspondent, sets out with the aid of a detailed map exactly where each of the settlements will be,- put, and whether they will .be rural or urban. It also charts., a new road network which will be built to link the settlements. The Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) whose Government has set up 27 settlements on the West Bank since coming to power in 1977, has said that Israel will build only 10 more settlements there. . - But a source close to Mr Drobless said that he saw no

contradiction betwen .4r Drobless’s plan and the Prime Minister’s statement. “Mr Begin also spoke about the need to widen and thicken settlements. Wei build our settlements in clusters and obviously al) of the existing clusters will be strengthened by adding new settlements to them. This is what we mean when we talk about thickening settlements,” he said. And in the West Bank Arab town of Nablus this week, thousands of jubilant Palestinians sang and danced in the streets to give an ecstatic Welcome home to the Mayor (Mr Bassam Shaka) who lost both his legs in a car bomb explosion six weeks ago.