Gaza settlers defy leaders and prepare for move

About half of the Jewish settlers to be uprooted from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank this summer are in talks with the Israeli government about moving, defying calls by their leaders to oppose the plan at all costs, officials said today.

But with only 10% of the settlers having taken the public step of tapping the government’s evacuation compensation fund, officials cautioned against waiting too long.

And Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, dismissing charges that the government wasn’t ready for the mid-August pullout, attacked opponents who were pressuring settlers to resist the plan and vowed to carry it out on time.

At a ministerial meeting on the pull-out, officials said more than 900 families were in various stages of negotiation with the government.

But Yonatan Bassi, head of the government agency overseeing civilian aspects of the withdrawal, cautioned time was running short.

He told the committee just 199 families and businesses had submitted requests for a piece of the 4.1 billion shekels (€730m)) the government had earmarked to compensate settlers.

These include just 87 families and 16 businesses from the Gaza Strip, where the overwhelming majority of the 1,800 settler families live, he said.

The low numbers attest to “the intense pressure being applied in Gush Katif on people not to submit compensation requests,” Bassi said, referring to the largest bloc of Gaza settlements.

“This is liable to work to the detriment of the people who submit requests too late,” he said. “I appeal to people not to wait until the last minute, because you’ll need the money the day after the evacuation.”

It takes about four weeks to process requests for compensation, he said. So far, 33 families had received money, he said.

Today’s meeting came as a new opinion poll showed shrinking public support for the plan.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uncharacteristically allowed journalists into the meeting to try to dispel the widespread impression the government was unprepared to provide alternative housing, jobs and schools for the 9,000 settlers who were to be relocated.

“The evacuation will take place on schedule,” Sharon said, criticising “incitement,” threats and pressure by pullout opponents on the settlers.

Pull-out opponents have urged settlers not to co-operate with the pull-out plan, and some settlers who have said they were ready to go said they had been threatened and ostracised.

“They are not concerned with the fate of the settlers and their children,” Sharon said. “They are willing to create great suffering on top of the suffering the evacuation will inflict, in order to achieve their political aims.”

Eran Sternberg, a settler spokesman, accused Sharon of reacting to shrinking support for his plan.

“The panic in the prime minister’s office following the drop in support for the expulsion is the only reason for ‘the ‘spin’ that was coming from Sharon through the cynical exploitation of the media,” he said.

While settler leaders have refused to cooperate with the plan, Sternberg also accused officials of failing to provide adequate relocation solutions.

“They are purposely offering ’irrelevant solutions’ whose objective is to sow confusion and represent the (settlement) residents as the guilty party,” he said.

The Israel Radio poll published Wednesday showed popular support for the withdrawal falling to 50%, from 60 percent and higher a year ago.

The poll said opposition to the plan rose to 40% from a low of 33% last year. The radio gave no details on the poll’s methodology or margin of error.

A poll published last Friday showed similar results.