THE Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, was yesterday said to be negotiating a deal with Jewish settler leaders in an attempt to win their support in the run up to the general elections on May 29th.
In return for their public support, the daily Ha'aretz reported, Mr Peres will promise not to uproot a single one of the 144 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The future of the settlements is to be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians on a final settlement, due to begin next month and to be concluded within three years.
The deal will also oblige Mr Peres to make a public commitment before the elections that in a final agreement with the Palestinians the majority of the settlements will remain under Israeli sovereignty, while the remainder will be under Israeli control. Furthermore, as a confidence building measure on Mr Peres's behalf, significant funds will be channelled into the settlements before the elections.
The revelations about a possible Peres settler deal come only days after the prime minister announced that if he is elected he intends holding a national referendum on the final settlement with the Palestinians. The move was widely seen as an attempt by Mr Peres to win the support of undecided voters who fear he may make too many concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians.
Mr Peres's main negotiating partner among the settlers is Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun from the West Bank settlement of Ofra. Rabbi Bin Nun strongly criticised his own community after Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, and said that rabbinic leaders opposed to the peace process with the Palestinians had contributed to the climate of incitement against Mr Rabin.
Most settler leaders, however, came out strongly against the negotiations yesterday, calling Rabbi Bin Nun "naive" and insisting that he was being misled by Mr Peres. Mr Uri Ariel, head of the leading settler organisation, said Rabbi Bin Nun represented no one but himself and reiterated his call to all the 140,000 settlers to vote for the Likud leader, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, for prime minister.
"I don't believe Peres," said another settler leader, Mr Elyakim Ha'etzni. "If he agrees to such a deal it means there will be no final agreement with the Palestinians."
In the autonomous areas under President Yasser Arafat's control attention was focused yesterday on the West Bank town of Ramallah, where the Palestinian National Council was holding its first meeting outside the Gaza Strip.
The meeting was convened as Israel's blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip imposed after a recent wave of Hamas suicide bombings dragged on into its sixth week. The blockade bars about 60,000 Palestinians from reaching their jobs inside Israel.
The proceedings got off to a bumpy start when Mr Arafat ordered all the press representatives out of the council chambers. Outside on the streets of Ramallah tempers flared as Palestinian police blocked 1,500 students from the University of Bir Zeit, who marched in protest against the arrest of fellow students. Under strong Israeli pressure in the wake of the bombings, Mr Arafat's forces have arrested many Hamas activists.