Jerusalem Post

20 May 1999

LONDON - Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak will withdraw from 75 percent of the West Bank, but will insist on retaining an unspecified area along the Jordan Valley, according to the newsletter Foreign Report, to be published here today.

Quoting a "senior leader" of One Israel, it said the depth of territory to be retained along the Jordan River will be determined by negotiations, but that Barak regards this strip as the "eastern final border of Israel."

He envisages most of the West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli sovereignty, with inhabitants of abandoned settlements being given the option of either moving to other settlements or resettling within the Green Line.

No budget is planned for settlements, said the source, and work at Har Homa will be stopped immediately, as will "pirate settlements" that were permitted to develop during the final five-month tenure of outgoing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

While Barak will insist on Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty, he will allow a form of "municipal sovereignty" for Palestinians in the city, while handing control of the Moslem holy sites to Jordan's King Abdullah II.

According to the newsletter, Barak is anxious to implement the Wye agreement and move to final-status talks as quickly as possible. The newsletter quoted the source as saying that while Barak may appear to be more flexible than Netanyahu in negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, "he is no less tough, maybe more so."

"If Arafat thinks he can return to his old tricks by using the possibility of Hamas operations against Israel as a kind of threat, he will learn very quickly that this tactic cannot work with Barak," said the source.

In a related development, the newsletter reports that the South Lebanese
Army is in the process of disintegration.

The force is unable to recruit soldiers to man its positions, while some SLA officers and men are suspected of working for Hizbullah.

It said Israel has failed to find a replacement for SLA commander Gen. Antoine Lahad and noted that the commander of the SLA training camp, along with hundreds of SLA soldiers, have emigrated to Sweden.

It also reports that members of the SLA General Security Service, enticed by offers of "amnesty," have defected to Hizbullah with the names of their agents.

Even though the SLA soldiers are still being paid, fed, trained, and armed by Israel, added the newsletter, many have switched their allegiance to Hizbullah.