MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A002200270001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 28, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

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~UITT HOUE
Middle East
Africa
South Asia
State iDepartment review completed
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This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Middle East - Africa Division, Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
Israel: Pressures for Jewish Settlements
in the Occupied Territories Continues . .
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Sri Lanka: New Budget. . . . . . . . .
Nov 28, 1975
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Israel
Pressures- for Jewish Settlements in the
Occupied Territories Continue
Prime Minister Rabin's government continues to
be under pressure from the powerful Israeli lobby that
wants the pace of Jewish settlement activities in the
occupied territories accelerated.
The determination of the pro-settlement groups
has been fueled by anti-Israel resolutions adopted
recently by the UN General Assembly, especially the
one that equated Zionism with racism. Last week, two
of the groups, the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Fed-
eration, reportedly proposed to the government's
Ministerial Committee on Settlements a plan to estab-
lish 17 new settlements in the Israeli-occupied ter-
ritories between now and the end of next year. The
plan calls for nine settlements on the West Bank,
five on the Golan Heights, and three in the northern
Sinai just south of the Gaza Strip. Financing probably
would come mainly from the Jewish Agency's quasi-gov-
ernmental Jewish National Fund.
Meanwhile, the Gush Emunim bloc, a more militant
group, announced earlier this month that it would
soon -resume large-scale settlement attempts on the
West Bank with or without government approval. Spokes-
men for the bloc claim to have 535 Jewish families
organized into six groups ready to establish new
settlements. Seventeen of the families are already
living in a government-approved "work camp" northeast
of the town of Ramallah. The camp reportedly is it-
self becoming a de facto settlement, although the
government claims only workers at a nearby Israeli
military installation have been given permission to
live there.
An initial attempt by Gush Emunim on November 25
to carry out its announced plan ended quickly. Accord-
ing to press accounts, some 50 would-be settlers were
removed by Israeli troops from an abandoned railway
station near Nablus that they had occupied. Last spring
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the religious-oriented group conducted numerous
illegal settlement attempts on the West Bank in close
cooperation with the National Religious Party's youth
wing. Each attempt resulted in a confrontation--some
of them violent--with government troops sent to dis-
perse the settlers.
Additional settlements are also being proposed
for the Golan Heights. The kibbutz movement that is
affiliated with the dominant faction of Rabin's Labor
Party recently announced its intention to sponsor
an additional Golan settlement and so has the kibbutz
movement affiliated with Labor's leftist coalition
partner, Mapam. The Labor faction already sponsors
three settlements in the area and the Mapam group two.
Several weeks ago, a small group affiliated with the
Religious Party set up an unauthorized settlement in
the central Golan near the disengagement line.
Government policy on the settlement issue is
deliberately ambiguous. The Rabin cabinet is badly
divided on the subject and the Prime Minister is
anxious to keep it from becoming a major political
issue that could seriously threaten the stability of
his coalition. He has the task of trying to placate
the powerful pro-settlement forces while at the same
time trying to prevent the settlement issue from
jeopardizing possible peace negotiations with the
Arabs, who closely monitor Israeli activities in the
occupied territories. So far, he has handled the
problem by procrastinating whenever possible on deci-
sions concerning specific proposals for new settlements.
At the same time, however, he has bowed to pressure
from the settlement groups and authorized the expansion
of existing Jewish settlements and also allowed work
to proceed on a new West Bank industrial site and on
new regional centers on the Golan and in the Sinai.
His rationale has been that these are not new settle-
ments but only facilities desi ned to service existing
ones. F7
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India
New Setbacks for Gandhi
Prime Minister Gandhi received two new setbacks
this week. In municipal elections in two cities of
Gujarat state, her Ruling Congress Party went down
to overwhelming defeat. The winner was the Popular
Front, a combination of five generally right-of-
center opposition parties, that swept to power in
state elections in Gujarat last June, just prior to
the proclamation of a national emergency. Since then
the Ruling Congress has sought to break up the Front
by capitalizing on rivalries and disputes between
the various parties. While there have been individual
defections, no major party has withdrawn from the
grouping.
On November 16, before the municipal elections,
a convention was held in the state capital with the
announced intention of expanding the Front into a
country-wide party to contest national elections.
The convention apparently helped cement solidarity
among the constituent parties, although it was
announced that they would continue to exist indepen-
dently. Members of some parties fear loss of identity
and absorption into a highly centralized new political
organization.
Success for the Front in national elections--when-
ever they may be held--is by no means assured because
of the traditional antipathy between the member parties
and the continued incarceration of many senior opposi-
tion leaders. Nevertheless, the apparent success of
the convention in keeping the opposition parties
basically united and the new Front victories in Gujarat
will cause concern in New Delhi among top leaders of
the Ruling Congress Party.
Meanwhile, on November 26, a High Court justice
in Bombay upheld a petition challenging the Indian
government's press censorship regulations, imposed
when the emergency was declared. The ruling,which
(Continued)
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the government is expected to appeal, stated that
comments and criticism of government action could
not be blacked out unless they affected public order
or internal security. The judgment, if upheld, will
probably have considerable impact on future rulings
in similar cases presently pending before other
courts. Earlier this month another justice ordered
the government's chief censor to withdraw his instruc-
tions banning press re rtina on ' gs before
the same High Court.
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Sri Lanka
New Budget
Sri Lanka's 1976 budget, announced earlier this
month, continues the price distortions and direct
controls that have contributed to the country's
critical balance-of-payments position and offers
little incentive to foreign investment. It does not
embrace some major economic changes urged on Colombo
by international lending agencies. Nevertheless, Sri
Lanka will probably receive at least part of the $105
million in new credits it has requested from the
International Monetary Fund.
The budget, which could be modified during parlia-
mentary debate, is based on the following policies
and proposals:
-- continuation of the dual foreign exchange
rate, which discriminates against the main export
crops and makes food imports seem relatively
cheap;
-- continuation of the free rice ration and a
reduction of the subsidized price for additional
rice and sugar;
-- acknowledged "de facto nationalization" of
foreign banks by a method that enables the gov-
ernment to avoid paying compensation, namely by
transferring the foreign trade transactions of
recently nationalized plantations from the foreign
banks to state banks;
-- an increase in the fertilizer subsidy for
rice production to the high rate already available
for tea and coconuts;
-- a budget deficit of over $300 million--40 per-
cent of projected revenue--to be financed through
such domestic sources as pension and insurance
funds and by foreign aid.
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In recent months, economic policy decision by
Prime Minister Bandaranaike.'s government have moved
in different directions. The long discussed
nationalization of plantations producing primary
export crops took effect on October 15. The recent
removal of restrictions on the domestic sale and
transportation of rice, on the other hand, suggests
a shift away from state regulation. The Prime Minister
is apparently using the new budget to minimize opposi-
tion from left-wing elements, which have become more
vocal since a Trotskyite party was expelled from the
governing coalition last September.
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