Ariel Sharon struggled this week to garner support for his proposal that Israel unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli prime minister is expected to put his ”disengagement” plan to a vote of Likud party members next month, but it appeared to many that ”Mr Sharon is not convinced his plan will win approval,” reported Haaretz.
Much was at stake for Sharon, noted Alexander Jacobson in Maariv. ”A vote of no confidence by the members of his party on such a key issue will surely not allow him to remain in office.” Given that a withdrawal was inevitable at some point, he argued, ”isn’t it reasonable to let the prime minister decide on the best timing and in return get the best American reward for the move?”
Sharon travels to Washington this week for talks, but he had yet to satisfactorily answer his domestic critics, said Uri Dan in the Jerusalem Post. Would withdrawal really improve Israel’s security? And would the prime minister not be seen to be ”awarding Palestinian terror its greatest victory”?
That complaint was voiced at the Israeli Insider online news magazine by Paula R Stern. ”The day that Mr Sharon pushes his disengagement plan through, I will quit the party,” she wrote. ”I will resign so that my voice will not lend credence to rewarding the murderers of children.” In a commentary on the website of the national broadcaster, Arutz Sheva, Ellen Horowitz condemned Sharon for having ”broken an eternal covenant”.
The Saudi paper Arab News linked the debate over withdrawal to Sharon’s recent remarks that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, could become an Israeli assassination target. ”He believes it crucial that before he breaks away from Gaza … he break the back of the Palestinian resistance, and kill as many activists as possible, so that they do not come back to haunt him,” it argued.
”There can be no doubt that [Mr Sharon] hopes the Palestinians will be caught in midstream without a paddle, as it were, in being ill-prepared to administer the area,” added Gulf News. The Dubai-based daily therefore welcomed signals from the militant group Hamas that it might be ”ready to heed Mr Arafat’s call to enter mainstream politics”. – Guardian Unlimited Â