Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan was hanging in the balance yesterday as members of his right-wing Likud party prepared to vote on his ambitions to bring the opposition Labor Party into a new broad-based coalition.
While opponents of the pullout plan will submit a motion to the party's 2,900-strong convention that would specifically rule out Labor joining the govern-ment, Sharon is expected to counter with his own motion which would authorize him to negotiate with "any Zionist party."
Sharon needs to bring Labor into government in order to pass his so-called disengagement plan through parliament.
Declining support
He lost his majority in the 120-seat Knesset in June when traditional right-wing supporters baulked at what they regard as the "forcible transfer of Jews" from the Gaza Strip.
Convention president Israel Katz, who is one of the leading opponents of the disengagement plan, said yesterday that the party members were likely to first vote on Sharon's motion and then on Labor in government.
"Technically, one could vote for the two motions, which represent two totally opposite concepts," Katz, who is agriculture minister in the government, told public radio.
Likud divisions
Amid fears that the outcome of the vote could lead to a deep division within party ranks, Katz said it was vital that the vote took place in a "calm atmosphere which is vital to preserve unity within Likud."
Sharon has said that he will not be bound by the outcome of the vote, but a rejection of his overall political strategy would be extremely damaging.
The disengagement plan was rejected in a wider ballot of Likud members in May but Sharon has ploughed ahead with his project.
Sharon has been insisting that a coalition with Labor is far from inevitable and hopes that his alternative resolution will convince sceptics to give the prime minister room to maneuver.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS