The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is expected to sack two of his hardline ministers on Friday if there is no last minute majority in the cabinet for his plan to withdraw all Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip and parts of the West Bank.
The dismissal of ministers from the far right National Union would manufacture a majority for Sharon at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, which is scheduled to vote on the withdrawal plan. But it also threatens to unravel the governing coalition as another extremist party has said it will withdraw support for Sharon if the cabinet approves the closure of Jewish settlements.
Sharon summoned the two National Union ministers, Benny Elon and Avigdor Lieberman, to this morning’s meeting after two days of negotiations between the prime minister and cabinet members from his own party failed to resolve differences over the pullout from Gaza.
The finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his supporters had demanded that Sharon limit the withdrawal to a few small settlements and refused to endorse a total pullout.
Sharon offered a compromise in which the cabinet would vote for the withdrawal in stages, but that was rejected by Netanyahu and other ministers who demanded that last month’s referendum in the ruling Likud party, which rejected the closure of settlements, be respected.
After negotiations deadlocked last night, 12 ministers were opposed to the pullout and 11 were in favour. By sacking two of his cabinet, Sharon is assured of a majority. But another minority party in the government, the National Religious Party, has said it will withdraw from the coalition if the National Union is thrown out. That would leave Sharon with a minority government in the Israeli parliament, forcing him to rely on the opposition Labour party to fulfil its pledge to provide him with a ”safety net” to push through his plan for unilateral disengagement. Alternatively, if the sackings spurred an agreement before Sunday, they could be withdrawn.
Earlier on Thursday, the prime minister of Turkey, Israel’s closest ally in the Middle East, accused Sharon of ”state terrorism” against Palestinians and likened their treatment to that of Jews under the Spanish inquisition.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz come after an international outcry over the killing of about 60 Palestinians, including many civilians and children, in last month’s military assault on Rafah in Gaza. The destruction of Palestinian houses in Rafah left about 1 600 people homeless. On Thursday, the military continued the demolitions, with more than 40 homes destroyed in Rafah camp this week.
Ha’aretz asked Erdogan if he believed Israel was practising ”state terrorism”?
Erdogan noted that Turkey had welcomed Jews driven out of Spain by the inquisition. ”Jews were the victims at that time. Today, the Palestinians are the victims, and unfortunately the people of Israel are treating the Palestinians as they were treated 500 years ago,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â