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Labor MK Eitan Cabel.
 (Tomer Appelbaum)
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Last update - 18:02 10/12/2009
Labor rebels: Settlements don't need Israel's money
By Mazal Mualem and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Israel news 

Labor Party rebels on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his plan to include dozens of West Bank settlements on a future regional map of areas Israel will insist on retaining once final borders are set with the Palestinians.

Labor MK Eitan Cabel sent a scathing letter to other party ministers on Thursday in which he lambasted them for not speaking out against the plan. According to Cabel, Israel will be paying for these settlements at the expense of poorer peripheral towns, and therefore should not be included in a permanent deal.


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I already understood that we gave up our flag of peace," he wrote. "Indeed, if you hadn't given it up, then you would not have remained silent when the prime minister announces that he resume construction in the West Bank after the 10-month so-called freeze."

"But have you also given up the social flag which has been given to our party? Do these settlements really need this money that is necessary in so many other parts of the country?" he asked.

"I have already given up on Ehud Barak," Cabel wrote of the Labor Party chairman and defense minister. "He lost connection to both reality and the Israeli public a long time ago and he proves this again and again."

"But you," Cabel wrote to the ministers. "Are you, like him, so faithful to the leadership that you have cast your eyes downward so as not to see the atrocities for which you are as much responsible for as the rest of the ministers in this government?"

"You have forgotten where you come from and you have no idea where you are coming free. And yet you still call me and my associates rebels."

MK Amir Peretz said Netanyahu's announcement was meant as a "tranquilizer" for settlers, many of whom see the temporary freeze as a declaration that their communities will be dismantled.

Peretz called the prime minister's declaration a security excuse which "harms any chance of a peace process and will create extra negative dynamics
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