Israeli Cabinet Ratifies Peace Deal ����Israel's cabinet Sunday overwhelmingly ratified a peace deal Prime Minister Ehud Barak signed with Palestinian National Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in Egypt on September 4 night to revive the peace process. ����The 23-member cabinet voted 21-2 to approve the agreement on the implementation of the US-brokered Wye accords, paving the way for further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank and the launch of permanent peace talks with the Palestinians. ����Interior Minister Natan Sharansky from the Yisrael b'Aliya, or Russian immigrant party, and Housing Minister Yitzhak Levy of the right-wing National Religious Party, were the only two ministers who voted against the deal. ����The accord, signed at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in the presence of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, is the first agreement since Barak took office in July promising to revive the peace process on all tracks. ����Barak said at the cabinet meeting that the major achievement of the agreement was to have delayed the transfer of some land from joint control to full Palestinian control by three months. ����According to the agreement, Israel would complete the troop withdrawals stipulated by the Wye agreement, signed and then frozen by Barak' hard-line predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu last year, by January 2000, rather than by mid-November under the original Wye timeline. ����Under the new deal, Israel and the Palestinians are supposed to have entered an advance stage of permanent talks by early 2000, which would help reduce the potential risk of confrontation between the two sides raised by the troop withdrawal. ����Barak said the agreement would enhance Israel's security in a long run, Israel Radio reported. (Xinhua) WorldNews 1999-09-06 Page6 Full Story in Chinese