Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged Thursday to push ahead with his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip despite a stinging public rebuke from his Likud Party.
Sharon will try to build a "strong, stable coalition" even though his hard-line party voted Wednesday against joining forces with the center-left Labor Party, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
PHOTO: AFP
"The prime minister is determined to continue with the disengagement plan and the diplomatic process and he will try to build a stable coalition," according to a statement from Sharon's office.
The vote at a Likud Party convention Wednesday was not close with 60 percent in favor of banning Labor. The opposition party's inclusion was needed to assure Cabinet support of the Gaza withdrawal next year.
Even Sharon's own proposal, to allow him to negotiate with all the Zionist parties, was narrowly voted down. A defiant Sharon indicated he would ignore the results, but even supporters wondered if the battle-scarred political infighter would succeed.
Abandoned by traditional hard-line supporters because of his plan to withdraw from all Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements in September 2005, Sharon launched coalition talks with the Labor Party.
Labor would ensure Sharon a majority for the plan both in his Cabinet and in parliament, something he doesn't have now.
The votes could stall or even scuttle the Gaza withdrawal, although Sharon has insisted he intends to carry it out. The Cabinet must vote on each stage that involves evacuation of Israeli settlements, and Sharon would find it hard to muster a majority without Labor, because of the opposition in his own party.
Even before the vote, Sharon aides said it would not be legally binding on the prime minister.
Speaking at the convention, Sharon was stoic in the face of loud heckling. "Likud will not disqualify or boycott anyone. Likud will conduct negotiations with all Zionist parties for expanding the coalition," he said, as opponents chanted, "Likud yes, Labor no."
However, opponents said he would not be able to approach Labor now. "Sharon cannot ignore the wishes of his party," said Likud lawmaker Michael Ratzon.
The Labor Party denounced the results, saying Likud had become "a movement that destroys all chances to bring about an end to violence in the region." The Labor statement said ``elections must be called immediately.''
General elections are due by 2006, and a new government could be a short-term affair. Likud-Labor coalition negotiations stalled earlier over domestic issues.
Labor strongly favors Sharon's ``unilateral disengagement'' plan. Labor has long advocated an Israeli pullout from Gaza and most of the West Bank for peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the two areas, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
On May 2, about 60 percent of Likud Party members voting in a non-binding referendum turned down Sharon's plan, which would remove all 21 settlements from Gaza and four of the 150 from the West Bank.
Sharon, who refuses to negotiate with the Palestinians, says the plan is needed to boost Israel's security and ensure its Jewish majority.
Ignoring the referendum, Sharon fired a pro-settlement party from his coalition and saw another resign in order to ram the plan through his Cabinet. But he lost his parliamentary majority in the process.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS