Settlement plan faces new attack

JERUSALEM - A far-right Israeli minister has sought Cabinet support for a plan to carve out isolated Palestinian cantons as an alternative to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to uproot some Jewish settlements.

An aide to the minister said the proposal called for leaving settlements untouched and instead partitioning the West Bank and Gaza Strip into several Palestinian districts, or cantons, with civil self-government but still under Israeli military control.

The Palestinian Authority dismissed the canton idea as a plot by the "extremist Israeli right" to block creation of a Palestinian state as envisioned in a US-backed peace plan.

In a fresh challenge to Sharon's "disengagement" plan among his pro-settler coalition partners, Transport Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent letters to 10 of 21 cabinet members asking them to help him draft his initiative.

"The nationalist camp must put together a unified stand," Lieberman, head of the National Union Party, wrote to his cabinet colleagues.

Sharon's office was expected to reject the proposal by Lieberman, whose party is one of the smaller members of the ruling coalition.

Lieberman's initiative was a sign of simmering opposition to Sharon's plan, announced earlier this month, to remove 17 of 21 settlements in Gaza under go-it-alone moves he has threatened to impose should peace efforts remain stalled.

Palestinians say they fear Sharon will use the evacuation to mask a strengthening of Israel's 120 settlements in the West Bank and annex land they want for a state of their own.

Sharon's plan would also mean evacuating several West Bank enclaves and drawing a "security line" around the rest - leaving Palestinians with less land than they seek for a state.

Despite plans for additional across-the-board cuts in Israel's 2004 budget, parliament's Finance Committee today approved the transfer of 91 million shekels ($NZ29.62 million) for construction in West Bank settlements.

The government says settlements in the West Bank must be expanded to accommodate the "natural growth" of the 200,000 Israelis who live there.

Also in parliament, the government easily defeated three no-confidence motions that opposition parties brought over economic policy.

Opinion polls show most Israelis support scrapping the Gaza settlements, but the National Union Party, with seven of the coalition's 68 seats in the 120-member parliament, has threatened to bolt if the plan is implemented.

- REUTERS