Settlement leader takes blame for loss, sees hard times ahead
Special to World Tribune.com
Thursday, May 20, 1999
JERUSALEM -- On Tuesday, a Jewish settlement leader announced his resignation
acknowledging that he and his colleagues were responsible for the
downfall of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Pinhas Wallerstein, executive director of the Council of Jewish
Settlements of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, said he and other right-wing
critics of Netanyahu must take responsibility for his election defeat.
Last year, settlement leaders as well as nationalist parliamentarians
launched a campaign to topple Netanyahu's government following his
signature on the Wye River accords in October.
The accords called for an Israeli handover of 18.1 percent of the West
Bank to full or partial Palestinian control.
Wallerstein, whose resignation takes effect in June, said he is
concerned that the election of Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak will mark
the onset of hard times for the nearly 200,000 Jewish residents in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. "I am scared that the settlers will be
delegitimized," he said.
Election results showed that 88 percent of West Bank settlers voted for
Netanyahu. Many of them, however, voted for the right-wing Nationalist
Union and ignored Netanyahu's Likud Party.
Binyamin Ze'ev Begin, chairman of the Nationalist Union, announced on Wednesday his resignation from
parliament.Begin, whose party won three seats in the Knesset,
said Monday's elections results have led him to conclude that he does
not have a constituency.
"My intention was to improve things and I couldn't do it," Begin said.
"I have come to the conclusion to stop my activities."
Begin's resignation ends a 12-year political career. He was elected in
1988 to parliament and in 1993 ran for Likud Party chairman and lost to
Binyamin Netanyahu. Begin challenged Netanyahu in the race for prime
minister but withdrew from the race on Sunday evening, hours before the
polls opened.
Netanyahu resigned as Likud chairman on Monday night, less than 30
minutes after the polls closed and Labor Party challenger Ehud Barak was
declared the winner in the race for prime minister.
Jewish settlers said they will resume a campaign to establish outposts
outside their communities. They said they fear that Barak will agree to
territorial concessions in the West Bank that will create isolated
settlements.
Some settlement leaders welcomed Wallerstein's resignation and called
for the entire council to stop down. "We are talking about the same
leadership for the last 20 years," Avi Farhan, a Gaza settlement leader
said. "These people have been exchanging positions as in musical
chairs."
Thursday, May 20, 1999
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