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Sharon faces Netanyahu challenge over Gaza pullout
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-14 10:15
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a surprise challenge on Monday
to his plan to expedite a pullout from Gaza when Benjamin Netanyahu, his main
rival in the Likud party, called for a referendum on the issue.
But Sharon won an unexpected reprieve from another quarter. A pro-settler
religious party threatening to quit his coalition gave him a breathing space by
voting to postpone a decision until parliament ratifies a Gaza withdrawal.
Analysts saw Netanyahu's bid, coming right after an angry rally by 70,000
opponents of the plan, as an attempt to delay a withdrawal of settlers and
soldiers that the Israeli leader hopes to complete by the end of 2005.
"I propose, not as a condition, but as something I believe can preserve
national unity, an accelerated referendum process in which one question will be
posed: 'Do you support or oppose the government's decision for a phased
disengagement?"' said Finance Minister Netanyahu, a former prime minister.
Netanyahu, Sharon's rival on the right of Likud, said he was confident
Israelis, in line with opinion polls showing strong support for quitting Gaza,
would vote in favor of withdrawing.
But a senior political source, who declined to be identified, said: "When
Sharon examined the (possibility of a referendum), he saw it wouldn't fit into
his deadline and would take at least six months to arrange."
Political sources said Sharon remained opposed to a referendum on ending
Israel's 37-year-old occupation of Gaza and would stick to his intention to win
cabinet and preliminary parliamentary approval by November 3 for a pullout.
Around 8,000 settlers live in hard-to-defend enclaves among 1.3 million
Palestinians in the tiny coastal territory.
Pro-settler coalition partner puts off
exit
The National Religious Party (NRP) threatened on Monday to leave the
coalition if parliament passed a Gaza "disengagement" and if Sharon did not put
the plan to a referendum.
But the motion, passed by 65 percent of central committee members, in effect
meant the defeat of a hawkish proposal that called for the party to walk out if
the cabinet approved any compensation for settlers, an issue on its agenda on
Tuesday.
"We will continue to conduct the struggle (against the Gaza plan) from inside
the government," Welfare Minister Zevulun Orlev of the NRP told Israel Radio
after results were announced.
Sharon now controls 59 of parliament's 120 seats and would lose four more
legislators if the NRP ends the partnership.
But his government would probably survive in the short term because he has
enjoyed a safety net provided by the main opposition Labour Party, which backs a
Gaza withdrawal.
Israel's military meanwhile pursued a campaign against Palestinian militants,
killing three members of a group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's
Fatah faction in an air strike in the West Bank city of Jenin.
One of those killed was the local deputy leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza
and the West Bank.
The Israeli army said the militant orchestrated attacks in which two Israelis
as well as two Palestinians were killed.
Thousands of Palestinians shouted for revenge against Israel and gunmen fired
rifles into the air at a funeral march after the Monday afternoon attack in
Jenin, witnesses said.
Netanyahu spoke out with tensions soaring between Sharon, a former champion
of the settlers, and nationalist hard-liners who packed a busy square in
Jerusalem on Sunday night and denounced the Gaza withdrawal plan, calling Sharon
a "dictator."
Hours beforehand, Sharon had accused far-right leaders of trying to spark a
civil war in Israel with their calls on settlers to resist being uprooted from
Gaza.
Sharon's plan commands majority backing in opinion polls.
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