Revised Gaza plan advances
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won Cabinet approval Sunday for a watered-down version of his proposal to pull out of the Gaza Strip without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
The Cabinet voted 14-7 to endorse the withdrawal in principle. The measure puts off, for now, the question of uprooting Jewish settlements.
Sharon envisions removing all 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four others in the northern West Bank in stages by the end of next year. He said the pullback is in the best interest of Israeli security.
“The disengagement is under way. Today the government decided that by the end of 2005 Israel intends to leave Gaza and four settlements in (the northern West Bank),” Sharon said. The Cabinet vote marks the first time Israel has unilaterally agreed to withdraw from areas it seized in the 1967 Middle East War – a development considered significant because Sharon was for decades the godfather of the settlement movement.
Under a last-minute compromise with holdout members of his Likud Party, Sharon agreed to a revision stating that the government does not yet have permission to uproot settlements. The Cabinet would have to decide later which settlements would be dismantled – adequate time, foes hope, to blunt the plan.
Sharon plans to seek approval in March, after government preparations have been made. For now, the settlements can continue receiving government funding to pay for utilities and other municipal services, but not to pay for new construction.
The compromise was aimed at heading off a damaging rift within the right-leaning Likud, Israel’s dominant party, and at helping shore up Sharon’s governing coalition, whose stability is likely to be tested in the coming weeks.
But the watered-down measure drew fire from the right and left. Some Israeli nationalists decried moving toward dismantling settlements, which they view as giving in to terrorism, while peace advocates criticized what they viewed as the plan’s vagueness.
Palestinian leaders welcomed any Israeli withdrawal, but expressed skepticism over whether the plan would ever be put into place. “If President Bush isn’t re-elected, I think this plan will go into history with other plans,” said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet member.
The plan still must be approved by the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, where prospects remain uncertain.
Sharon faces separate no-confidence motions Monday by those on the left and the right angry over the withdrawal plan and Sharon’s tactics leading up to the vote.
On Friday, Sharon fired two ministers opposed to his plan from the hard-line National Union in order to swing the Cabinet vote in his favor. The dismissals were the subject of legal challenges before Israel’s Supreme Court hours before the Cabinet session.
Five weeks ago, Sharon watched the original version of his plan go down in defeat during a May 2 vote by Likud rank and file. That lopsided loss immediately prompted some pundits to declare his reign effectively over.
He then revised his proposal by recommending that the evacuations be done in four stages – not one – and spent much of last week jousting with holdout Likud ministers, who insisted on a compromise that avoided calling for dismantling settlements.
Sharon’s overall plan enjoys the backing of most Israelis, according to public opinion polls.