The Israeli government was forced to postpone the annual budget vote in Parliament on Wednesday amid a continuing rebellion in the ruling Likud party over Ariel Sharon’s plan to pull Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip.
But, with opposition support, the prime minister won a separate vote to provide compensation to about 8 500 Jewish settlers who would be forced to leave the Gaza Strip and a small part of the West Bank next year under the unilateral disengagement plan. The Bill lays out details of the evacuation of 21 settlements as well as providing for prison sentences of up to three years for resisting the removals by force.
The government postponed the budget vote after a group of MPs from Likud and right-wing religious parties rebelled over the disengagement plan. The opposition Labour party said it would not support the budget either, despite giving Sharon his majority in Parliament approving the Gaza withdrawal last week and the compensation Bill on Wednesday.
Labour said it wanted spending cuts watered down, but if the budget vote turned into a no-confidence motion it would not bring down Sharon because it wants him to implement the disengagement plan.
Labour is also waiting to see if the finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, fulfils a threat to resign next week if Sharon does not agree to a national referendum on the Gaza withdrawal. Three other ministers have withdrawn similar ultimatums.
Sharon told a Cabinet meeting this week that Yasser Arafat’s collapse and dispatch to a Paris hospital last week had not changed his view that there was no one to negotiate with on the Palestinian side. He said that until the Palestinian Authority took steps to ”eliminate terror” he would continue with his unilateral plan.
”If Arafat ceases to lead the Palestinian Authority and a new, serious, responsible leadership arises, a suitable opportunity could certainly transpire in which different steps could be taken, and even the renewal of diplomatic negotiations,” Sharon said.
”Such a leadership would not be one that declares and announces its intentions, but one that brings terror to an end. I do not know when this will occur, if ever.”
But an Israeli foreign ministry report has warned that US pressure on Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians is likely to increase.
A renewed mandate for George Bush could cause him to increase pressure on Israel, anxious as he will be to ease his problems in Iraq and improve his standing in the Arab world.
Yasser Arafat’s health has deteriorated significantly once again in the past 24 hours, despite his having been moved to Paris for treatment, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday night. – Guardian Unlimited Â