Israeli defense minister Ben-Eliezer, one of the Labor Party representatives in the coalition cabinet of Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, expressed concern about the cabinet’s June 21 pledge to capture and hold Palestinian Authority land "as long as terror continues."

"I don’t recall agreeing to anything like that," he said through "clenched teeth," according to the Maariv daily.

Ben-Eliezer has declared himself a more enthusiastic supporter of another controversial move by Sharon’s government: the construction of a security line between Israel and the West Bank, described by Sharon’s spokesman as "a security zone, with sensors, patrols, obstacles, [and] trenches." Construction began in late June on the 60-mile first stage.

"I have never been more convinced that there is no military solution to this conflict," wrote the defense minister in a guest column in the June 25 Wall Street Journal. "Israel must focus on two dimensions: security separation and political horizon for peace," he stated.

Another advocate of the security zone, the current head of Shin Bet, the internal security force, "sees it as a way to get the army out of Palestinian areas," reported the June 16 New York Times. Sharon and the army chief, on the other hand, "are more partial to continuing military operations inside the West Bank.

"Many on the Israeli right, particularly settlers, are opposed to the fence," reported the big-business paper. "In Mr. Sharon’s government, at least two factions, the National Religious Party and Yisrael Ba’aliya, are planning to quit if the fence runs more or less along the Green Line [the West Bank-Israel border], threatening yet another coalition crisis."  
 
Deepening economic problems
Representatives of another right-wing coalition member, the Shas party, threatened to leave the government in April when Sharon announced a package of deep budget cuts. The proposal slashed 13 billion shekels (1 shekel = US 20 cents) from the country’s annual budget of 248 billion shekels.

Three weeks later, the government announced plans to cut a further 2 billion shekels--an attempt, according to the Financial Times, "to head off a large deficit and convince financial markets that it has the right medicine for the ailing economy."

Sharon is "faced with rising inflation and unemployment, a plunging shekel and a heavy defence bill for April’s invasion of the West Bank," reported the London-based daily. While annual inflation is running at around 8 percent, unemployment stands at around 10 percent, bringing jobless totals to record levels.

The rapid population growth among Palestinians and the stagnant population levels among Israeli Jews are also helping to fuel the Israeli rulers’ concerns about the long-term viability of their state. In mid-June Major-General Uzi Dayan warned the Israeli parliament (Knesset) of a "demographic time bomb" ticking in Israel and the occupied territories.

Dayan, the chairman of the National Security Council, told the parliamentarians that if current population trends continue, Palestinians will comprise a majority in the area between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean. Of the 15 million projected to live within those boundaries, 55 percent would be Palestinian.

Former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon used the statistics to argue for the abandonment of the West Bank and Gaza. "If we don’t get out of the territories," he said, "we will not be a democratic society or, alternatively, there will be no home for the Jewish people." On the other extreme of the debate are those who call for the "transfer" of Palestinians and the "Judaization" of the territories.

"The view that counts for now," reported the June 14 Financial Times, "is that of Ariel Sharon...whose stated ambition is to encourage the immigration of 1 million– 2 million Jews to help redress the demographic balance. Among those being urged to come to Israel are economic migrants from Argentina, French Jews facing a perceived wave of anti-Semitism, and religious Americans." BR> 
 
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