JERUSALEM, June 2 (JTA) — Israel’s defense minister believes the Jewish state can no longer delay a decision on a further redeployment from the West Bank. “The time has come to make decisions. We cannot delay this any longer,” Yitzchak Mordechai said Tuesday after talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. A moderate in the governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mordechai expressed optimism that the second phase of the further redeployment would soon be carried out. Netanyahu has so far resisted an American proposal, aimed at ending the 15-month-old stalemate, which calls for Israel to hand over another 13 percent of the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian security guarantees. The defense minister’s trip to Cairo came as Arab leaders considered convening a summit to address the impasse in talks, and a day after the Israeli Cabinet again failed to reach a decision on the U.S.-proposed plan. A sign of the division within Netanyahu’s coalition was apparent Tuesday, when members boycotted Knesset votes of no-confidence. The Third Way Party stayed away to protest the government’s failure to implement the second phase of the further redeployment. Meanwhile, members of the National Religious Party boycotted to protest any plans to hand over more territory. During the vote, some members of the NRP toured Har Homa, the controversial housing site in southeastern Jerusalem, to demonstrate their dissatisfaction that building has not started there yet. The no-confidence motion passed 41-6, but fell short of the 61-vote majority needed to bring down the coalition.
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