A hawkish minister is trying to rally support in the Israeli Cabinet for a far less generous alternative to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to withdraw from most of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
The plan floated by Transport Minister Avigdor Lieberman would confine the Palestinians to four isolated cantons in the West Bank.
Lieberman, from the far-right National Union, sent letters on Sunday to 10 ministers from Sharon's Likud Party and another hardline coalition party calling on them to unite around his plan.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"The issue is not to torpedo the prime minister's initiative, but to present an alternative," Lieberman told Israel Radio.
On Monday, members of the far-right parties abstained or stayed away from votes on parliamentary no-confidence motions in Sharon's government, showing their displeasure with Sharon's plans. The motions were defeated anyway, 53-45.
Coming from a small, hawkish party, Lieberman's plan has little chance of success. But it reflects the growing opposition that Sharon faces within his government as he pushes forward with a plan to separate Israel from the Palestinians.
Several coalition partners, including the National Union, have threatened to leave the government if Sharon carries out his plan.
Sharon has proposed withdrawing from most of the Gaza Strip and some West Bank settlements in a one-sided move if there is no progress in the US-backed "road map" peace plan in the next few months.
The road map calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The plan has been stalled for months, with both sides failing to fulfill their obligations.
While the US formally remains committed to the plan, US officials have recently indicated they could support Sharon's plan.
"It is clear to the US that the `road map' can only be spoken of in the past tense, and so now is the optimum time to present a new initiative," Lieberman told the station.
He has proposed fencing the Palestinians into four isolated cantons in the West Bank with Israel controlling access between them. The Gaza Strip would apparently be entirely under Israeli control.
Lieberman said he had sent letters to all the Cabinet ministers who have not publicly come out in support for Sharon's plan, including Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In other developments, Palestinian hospital officials in the Gaza Strip said a 46-year-old man had been shot in the head by Israeli troops near Rafah and died. The man was identified as Jamal al-Afifi.
The army said Palestinian gunmen had opened fire at troops in the area, which is near the Egyptian border, and that the soldiers returned fire. It had no information on Palestinian casualties.
Meanwhile, hospital officials in Gaza City said Mohammed Saleh Zu'rob, 28, had died from wounds sustained during an Israeli incursion into the Rafah refugee camp last week. That raised the Palestinian death toll from last Wednesday's fighting to 16, making it the bloodiest day in Gaza in more than a year.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS