"Israel does not intend to ask the World Bank or any other entity for financial assistance for the expenditures related to the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Just as we managed after the evacuation of Yamit [settlements in Sinai in 1982], we'll manage after the withdrawal from Gaza," Minister without portfolio Meir Sheetrit told "Globes" yesterday, before his meeting with World Bank president James Wolfensohn in Washington.
Sheetrit denied that he would ask Wolfensohn for World Bank assistance for the government's plan to build new communities. "In my talks with the World Bank president, I'll try to find out what it will do if the disengagement plan is carried out," he said. "We want the World Bank to help raise aid for the Palestinians. Israel doesn’t want anything from the World Bank for itself."
Sheetrit said Israel does not want to demolish the Gaza Strip settlements following their evacuation. "The evacuated settlements can house Palestinians. But we don’t want them to turn into neighborhoods of luxury homes for wealthy Palestinians, who would sell them in any case, or to house terrorists either, of course."
Sheetrit added, "We're not talking about selling the settlements, but transferring them to a group, possibly the quartet, which could expand the settlements' infrastructures and initiate plans to house refugees."
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on May 18, 2004