Ariel Sharon on Wednesday said he will put his plan to withdraw all Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank to a Cabinet vote on Sunday that could decide the future of the government.
The Israeli prime minister said he is confident of winning even though he lacked a majority for his plan at this week’s Cabinet meeting and none of his ministers has publicly changed their position.
”By the end of 2005, there will not be one Jew remaining in the Gaza Strip,” Sharon told members of the parliament’s defence committee.
Hours earlier, the US warned that it expected the Israeli government to carry through the disengagement plan and not a watered-down version demanded by the plan’s opponents. Critics of the plan said the statement was a choreographed attempt by the White House to garner support for Sharon’s position.
Sharon avoided a vote on the issue at this week’s Cabinet session because ministers were split by 12 to 11 against the Gaza pullout.
Opponents of the plan are led by the finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who says he is seeking a compromise solution that would limit the pullout to just three small settlements in the Gaza Strip. Sharon insists that they must all go, and has accused Netanyahu of using the dispute to make a bid for power.
A number of ministers are reported to be wavering on the issue or considering abstaining because they do not want to bring down the government. The Deputy Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said he believed that the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, would change his position and swing his support behind the prime minister.
But Wednesday’s statement has also fuelled speculation that if Sharon cannot persuade at least one of his opponents to join him, he will manufacture a majority by carrying out his threat to dismiss ministers who oppose him. The likely targets are ministers from the far-right National Union party that helps provide the government with a working majority in parliament.
Israeli newspapers reported that Sharon’s advisors, in a move to stop Netanyahu from trying to form a government by garnering a majority in parliament, were considering legislation to bring a general election forward to later this year if the cabinet rejected the Gaza withdrawal plan.
Sharon told the defence committee that a withdrawal from Gaza was necessary to maintain relations with the Bush administration which, in response to the disengagement plan, had veered away from decades of US policy in the Middle East by approving Israel’s intent to keep some Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and dismissing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in Israel.
”Our agreement with the United States speaks of a range of steps Israel has to take and unprecedented obligations to Israel on the part of the Americans, the likes of which Israel has not seen since the state was created,” he said.
After the meeting, Sharon’s critics said they would continue opposition to the plan. Shaul Yahalom, an MP for the National Religious party, a minority member of the coalition government, called the plan ”incomprehensible”. He added: ”I think the prime minister has gone mad.”
Netanyahu told Fox News that he was willing to support a limited withdrawal from Gaza, but that Sharon should respect the result of a referendum within his Likud party last month that rejected unilateral disengagement.
The finance minister also dismissed Sharon’s accusations that he was making a play for power.
”It is very important that the prime minister not be found in a position where he is charging ahead, he looks back and there is no one following him,” he said. ”It is very important that this government continue with Sharon in charge. I’m trying to make sure that happens, by allowing an agreed consensus for the first controlled withdrawal.” – Guardian Unlimited Â