Israel OKs Pullback in West Bank

After angry and protracted debate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divided Cabinet decided early today to carry out another limited pullback of its troops from West Bank lands, in keeping with the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

The right-wing government voted narrowly to withdraw from 9% of the West Bank in the first of three such moves that are to take place before the end of next year.

This withdrawal was far less than the Palestinians had expected. But the government hopes that it will be enough to stave off violent protests by Palestinians, who already are enraged by recent Israeli decisions to build a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem and close Palestinian offices in the Holy City.

Palestinian leaders have called for a demonstration today at the site of the 6,500-unit Jewish development planned for southeastern Jerusalem, on a slope that Israel calls Har Homa and Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghneim.

The United States, Europe and Arab states have joined Palestinians in criticizing Israel for the construction plan and the order to close the four Palestinian offices in Jerusalem, saying that such moves foster mistrust and threaten to derail the peace process.

The U.S.-brokered accord that Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat signed in January called for an Israeli pullback from most of the West Bank city of Hebron and committed Israel to three future redeployments, mainly from rural areas.

The accord did not determine the extent of those moves and left it to Israel to decide, though Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the United States had pressed for a pullback in 10% of the area. Netanyahu faced protests from members of his own camp and Cabinet who opposed handing over more land to the Palestinians before there is a final peace agreement, which is to be completed in May 1999.

“The debate has been surprisingly against the agreement,” Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan said after the first few hours of Cabinet debate Thursday night. “The basis of the opposition is that we haven’t been getting anything from the Palestinians. None of their obligations [in the Hebron agreement] have been fulfilled.”

In the end, the Cabinet voted, 10 to 7, to approve this pullback; four members of parliament threatened to split from the governing coalition and to vote with the opposition in a no-confidence motion that the opposition has scheduled for next week. The government still has enough support to win the vote.

To religious and far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition government, the redeployment means handing over pieces of a sacred “Greater Israel” and reducing the space available to Jewish settlers.

As the Cabinet met, dozens of right-wing protesters stood outside the prime minister’s office with signs reading: “It’s not peace, it’s piece by piece” and “Settlement Now.”

Settler leaders, who helped elect Netanyahu last May on his promise to get tough in negotiations with the Palestinians, attacked the redeployment as too generous.

“The prime minister has abandoned his positions and all his obligations. . . . He has started to speak in generous terms toward the Arabs. This is grounds for divorce,” said Pinhas Wallerstein, head of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Israeli troops have already left seven Arab cities in the West Bank and most of Hebron since Israel reached the landmark 1993 peace deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization. That put about 3% of the West Bank under full Palestinian control.

The Palestinians also have civil responsibilities in more than 400 villages, or about 26.6% of the West Bank, but Israel retains control over security.

After this morning’s decision, about 7% of the area where Palestinians already had civil authority will be put under their full control--more than doubling the area in which they will rule exclusively and Israeli soldiers no longer may enter; an additional 2% of the land still in Israeli hands will be put under full or partial Palestinian control.

The affected areas are largely around the cities of Janin and Hebron, including Halhoul, a village of about 25,000 Arabs on the outskirts of Hebron.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai said the redeployment will be coordinated with the Palestinians and completed within 48 hours.