Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister, is to step up campaigning over the next fortnight to win a referendum on his proposed closure of settlements in Gaza.
Defeat could force his resignation, while victory by a small margin would damage him politically.
The referendum on May 2 is restricted to the 200 000 members of Likud, Israel’s biggest rightwing party, which is divided over his plan.
Uzi Landau, a minister with out portfolio and one of the leading opponents of the plan, predicted defeat for Sharon. ”This is a matter of the heart,” he said. ”The prime minister is promoting a policy that is completely against the ideology of the party, which is for peace and for security but not for surrender to terror.”
Landau has been joined by other ministers and by the settler organisations.
Sharon is planning to withdraw all 7 600 Jewish settlers from Gaza by the end of next year and close four of the more than 120 settlements on the West Bank.
Landau’s supporters portray this as rewarding Hamas, the Palestinian organisation responsible for most of the suicide bombings.
Leftwing parties, which are bystanders in the referendum, predicted on Tuesday that Sharon would win. But there were jitters in Sharon’s team on Tuesday, with expressions of concern that the win may not be decisive enough.
A representative from one of the smaller leftwing parties said that while he still expected Sharon to win, ”he has invested so much on this policy that defeat would make continuation of his leadership quite difficult”.
Landau’s team said on Tuesday there was no reason why Sharon could not continue as Prime Minister even if he was defeated.
Both campaigns are leafleting party members, organising local meetings and planning advertising for buses and other public locations.
Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv’s King George Street said on Tuesday it was standing above the fray. The headquarters is adopting a neutral position free of stickers or any other propaganda from either side.
Those opposed to Sharon estimate they have about 40% of the party behind them. But Sharon has had a good week. He has secured the backing of George Bush for his plan and Israeli security forces killed the Hamas leader, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, at the weekend.
On Sunday and Monday he won over several key cabinet ministers who had opposed his plan, including the finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who carries a lot of authority in the party, and the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom. The cabinet is split 13 to 9 in Sharon’s favour.
But if there were to be a Palestinian suicide bombing inside Israel before May 2 that could sway some Likud members against Sharon.
Sharon’s team is targeting the estimated 10% of party members who are of Russian origin. They tend to be among the most hardline opponents of any concessions to the Palestinians.
Concerned that they will oppose the Gaza pull-out, Sharon and his team are to spend hours giving interviews to the Russian-language media. But Eli Krichevsky, who is on the editorial board of the Russian-language paper Vesty, said their importance was exaggerated and they would not necessarily be a problem for Sharon.
He said that he was not sure that Russian membership of Likud was as high as 10% and that they did not form a uniform bloc.
”I think he [Mr Sharon] has a pretty good chance just now,” Krichevsky said.
Sharon’s political problems will not end with a successful referendum result. Two of the smaller parties in his coalition government, the National Religious party and the National Union, are threatening to walk out if the withdrawal goes ahead.
That would open the way for Shimon Peres and the Labour party to rejoin the coalition government.
But Labour has said it will not join until the attorney general rules later next month on whether Sharon should face action over the Greek island financial scandal. – Guardian Unlimited Â