JERUSALEM, 1 June 2004 — Calls for new elections in Israel grew yesterday amid a government crisis over Premier Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal plan from the Gaza Strip.
Sources close to Sharon nevertheless said the premier was “determined” to push his plan through the government and Knesset, despite fierce opposition from hard-line nationalist parties and legislators.
An indication of this opposition came during a meeting of the Knesset caucus of his Likud party, when backbench legislator Naomi Blumenthal launched a stinging attack on the premier. “You scorn us, you are arrogant and you threaten people. Do you want to disengage from the Likud,” she shouted. Sharon did not reply.
In a frantic effort to reach a compromise between Sharon and opponents of his pullout plan, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid met with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon’s strongest rival in his Likud party, and Housing Minister Effi Eitam of the ultra-right National Religious Party (NRP).
But he said after the meeting that no compromise was reached and warned of an impending government collapse.
Opposition leader Shimon Peres, of the center-left Labour Party, for his part said the situation which had been created required new elections.
Sharon himself had threatened to fire ministers and reshuffle his government in a stormy Cabinet meeting Sunday.
He postponed a scheduled Cabinet vote on the plan, which envisages the staged evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and an initial four others in the West Bank. Only 11 ministers are said to support the plan, while 12 others are against it.
