Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu intends to raise the issue of the National Priorities Map for debate at the weekly cabinet session Sunday. He will do so against the will of Defense Minister and Labor party head Ehud Barak, who wanted the discussion postponed by a week.
Several ministers are expected to oppose the proposed National Priorities Map in the form presented by Netanyahu last Wednesday and to propose amendments or to present maps of their own. The objections come from both sides of the political spectrum.
The Labor party's ministers stated Thursday that if the map is brought up for debate in its present form they will vote against it. Barak and Yisrael Beiteinu both intend to demand that the city of Ashkelon be placed back in the National Priorities Map, following a media outcry over its exclusion.
Shas, on the other hand, wants the list of preferred communities enlarged to include Maaleh Adumim, a suburb east of Jerusalem, as well as the communities where the Gush Katif expellees reside.
Radical leftist Peace Now objected vehemently to the inclusion of Judea and Samaria communities in the map and published a report in which they claimed that the socio-economic status of the Jewish population there is not low, and therefore it should not enjoy preference.