RAMALLAH, 19 April 2005 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he favors delaying the planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer, after the plan’s administrator said settlers shouldn’t be moved during a Jewish mourning period.
A delay could buy an ill-prepared government much needed time, but it could also give Jewish extremists more time to organize resistance.
“I’m positively inclined toward this. We simply have to make it as easy as possible,” Sharon said, talking to reporters during a train ride yesterday.
Israel, meanwhile, announced plans to build 50 more homes in a West Bank settlement — a week after US President George W. Bush said such construction should stop.
Yonatan Bassi, head of the administration handling evacuation of the settlers, suggested at a Sunday Cabinet meeting that the beginning of the operation should be put off from late July to mid-August because of the three-week mourning period many Jews observe before the day that marks the destruction of the biblical Temples falling this year on Aug. 14.
Bassi, an observant Jew, raised the issue after “an internal struggle and talking to rabbis,” said his spokesman, Haim Altman.
A Cabinet committee appointed to oversee the pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank is to meet today, and Sharon said he would put the proposed delay to a vote. Israel TV reported Sharon has decided to delay the pullout.
Jewish law does not specifically prohibit moving houses during the mourning period. However, some say it violates the spirit of the three-week observance.
Sharon aide Asaf Shariv said the government had originally hoped to complete the withdrawal by Sept. 1 — in time for settlers’ children to start the year in new schools.
Another senior official responding to reports that the government is unprepared, said the evacuation can go forward as originally planned, but additional time would be helpful.
The government has yet to build even temporary housing for the settlers and has just begun examining permanent housing sites.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, Israel pressed ahead with settlement construction despite criticism that such activity violates the internationally backed road map peace plan and seriously damages prospects for a renewed peace track with the Palestinians.
Yaakov Harel, spokesman for the Israel Lands Authority, said yesterday the agency was seeking bids for construction of 50 new homes in Elkana, near the Israel-West Bank line. The announcement drew US and Palestinian criticism.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the US would seek clarifications, noting that Sharon just reaffirmed his backing for the road map. “Israel should not be expanding settlements and the Palestinian leaders need to act to dismantle terrorist organizations, McClellan said.
Bush has indicated the United States would support Israeli control over large settlements in a final peace settlement. But during a meeting with Sharon in Texas last week, he demanded no new construction in the settlements.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said the Elkana plan “is undermining the efforts to realize the vision of a two-state solution and we urge the American administration that while they focus on the Gaza disengagement they should not close their eyes to units being added in the hundreds in the West Bank.”
— With input from agencies
