Haaretz Correspondent
Tamuz 4, 5764
A delegation of senior
Israeli officials that left for Washington over the weekend will ask the
American government Monday evening for some $2.2 billion in special aid
for the disengagement plan.
The U.S. has already assured Israel in
principle that it will provide funding for the military outlays related to
the disengagement plan and for developing the Negev and the Galilee, and
this week's talks will focus on the details of the aid package, government
sources in Jerusalem said Sunday.
About a third of the money would
go toward relocating Israel Defense Forces bases from the Gaza Strip to
areas within the Green Line, and the rest would go toward developing the
Negev and the Galilee. Israel is asking for payments to be spread out over
a few years.
The delegation will make the request to an American
team headed by Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, the White
House official responsible for Israeli affairs. The Israeli delegation
includes Prime Minister's Office director general Ilan Cohen, Finance
Ministry director general Yossi Bachar and security officials.
The
financial aid requires approval by Congress and the Bush administration
will have to submit the aid as a supplemental budget in the next few
months.
A separate Israeli delegation is holding talks with the
Pentagon this week in an attempt to complete a deal on reporting and
supervision of arms sales.
Meanwhile, Israeli security officials
hope to finalize in the coming days a deal with Egypt to deploy Egyptian
border guards along the Philadelphi route on the Gaza-Egypt border for the
purposes of preventing arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. A security
official said Israel and Egypt have exchanged letters over the last few
days in a bid to finalize the agreement.
The Knesset Likud faction
was set to discuss Israel's planned withdrawal from the Philadelphi route
Monday, with Sharon participating in the discussion.
Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz, who was born in Iran, was interviewed Sunday on
Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera for the first time, where he
was asked about the future of West Bank settlements.
"Their future
will be determined in the permanent settlement, but some of the settlement
blocs will be on the Israeli side," said Mofaz. "The blocs and the Jordan
Valley are important because Israel is a small country and needs
reasonable borders and strategic depth, so that we can still exist here in
another 50 years."
Mofaz met Sunday with Quartet representative
James Wolfensohn to discuss coordinating the disengagement plan with the
Palestinians. Israeli officials are under the impression that Palestinian
Minister Mohammed Dahlan has been meeting with different Israeli ministers
to extract promises from each one.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
met Sunday with the United Nations envoy to the Mideast and asked him to
prevent the Palestinians from carrying out their plan to hold a General
Assembly meeting on the West Bank separation fence, where, he said, they
planned to attack Israel. Shalom asked that the envoy persuade the
Palestinians "to be responsible and be partners to our ambition to turn
the disengagement into a stimulus for hope and peace."
The inner
cabinet will meet Tuesday to discuss several issues related to the
disengagement plan, including the future of the Gaza border crossings, the
link between Gaza and the West Bank and the status of the territory
evacuated in the northern West Bank. Security officials will tell the
cabinet about its work on checkpoints between Israel and the territories.
Israeli officials want the project to be funded by international
donors.