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Sharon wins go ahead on gaza evacuation { March 29 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://nytimes.com/2005/03/29/international/middleeast/29mideast.htmlhttp://nytimes.com/2005/03/29/international/middleeast/29mideast.html
March 29, 2005
Israel Rejects Referendum on Gaza Plan
By GREG MYRE
JERUSALEM, March 28 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon secured an important victory on Monday as Parliament rejected by a vote of 72 to 39 a national referendum on his Gaza withdrawal plan that could have delayed or blocked his efforts to evacuate Jewish settlers.
With this step, Mr. Sharon appears primed to overcome the final political challenges to the plan, after a year of fierce debates with former allies and incessant political maneuvering. The operation, if it goes ahead as planned in July, will entail the removal of more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
The referendum had been championed by members of Mr. Sharon's own Likud Party - including Benjamin Netanyahu, the finance minister, and Silvan Shalom, the foreign minister - arguing that it offered the best way to prevent further divisions in Israeli society.
While the prime minister in effect won approval for the withdrawal last month, when the cabinet gave its consent, opponents have thrown up a series of obstacles in a last-ditch attempt to block it. They are now pinning their hopes on an effort to tie the fate of the Gaza plan to Mr. Sharon's yearly budget proposal, which must be in place by Thursday. If it is not, the government automatically falls, forcing new elections within 90 days.
At least 13 of the 40 Likud members of Parliament plan to vote against the budget. But over the weekend, the prime minister reportedly put together a majority, winning pledges of budget support from a number of opposition legislators. The budget vote is expected Tuesday or Wednesday.
But opponents say they will now take to the streets.
Several thousand settlers and other opponents of the Gaza plan gathered Monday outside Parliament.
Mr. Sharon "has ruined the chances of bringing the disengagement plan to the people for a decision and thus prevent a violent confrontation and a civil war," the Yesha Council, the main group representing settlers, said in a statement after Monday's parliamentary vote.
The prime minister says he sees no future for the Jewish settlers who live in guarded enclaves in Gaza and are outnumbered nearly 150 to 1 by the 1.3 million Palestinians there. But he is simultaneously working to strengthen Israel's hold on the much larger settlements in the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers live.
In a related development, the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, sharply criticized a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who reiterated President Bush's position that an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will have to factor in the large number of settlers.
In remarks broadcast Sunday on the Israeli radio, Ms. Rice said, "The American view is that while we will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations, the changes on the ground, the existing major Israeli population centers, will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiations."
Mr. Qurei told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah: "This policy is completely incomprehensible. These blocs, which the American administration has legitimized by giving its support to Israel, make the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible."
The Palestinians are seeking a state in all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, land Israel captured in 1967 and has since occupied.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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