Sharon’s Gaza plan clears hurdle

JERUSALEM – Israel’s plan to pull out of Gaza next year passed a crucial test Thursday when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his government crippled by opposition to the withdrawal, easily won party approval to invite the dovish Labor Party into his coalition.

Now the way is clear for removing 21 Israeli settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank next summer, as Sharon proposed, despite harsh criticism from his own party.

Defeat in the party vote could have spelled delay or even death for the Gaza withdrawal plan and an end to hopes for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in its wake.

Expanding the Israeli government, coupled with Jan. 9 elections to pick a new Palestinian leader after the death of Yasser Arafat, could inject new hope into efforts to restart the long-stalled peace talks.

Cabinet minister Israel Katz said the final vote count among the 3,000-member Likud Party Central Committee was 62 percent in favor of Sharon’s proposal and 38 percent opposed.

The win clears the way for adding Labor, a partner solidly favoring the Gaza pullout and resuming peace negotiations, giving Sharon a majority government for the first time since June.

There is opposition among Labor activists to joining their archrival Sharon in another government after their first joint government broke up in 2002. However, party leader Shimon Peres strongly favors entering the government, and party approval is expected.

The Likud committee already voted in August against inviting Labor to join the government. But after Sharon fired a key coalition partner for voting against his budget Dec. 1, his coalition was more tenuous than ever. He warned that the choice now was Labor or elections.