JERUSALEM, 28 October 2004 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was savoring a dramatic victory for his Gaza pullout plan yesterday after MPs gave the green light to the first ever evacuation of occupied Palestinian territory.
Deputies voted 67 to 45 in favor of the so-called disengagement plan amid chaotic scenes in parliament, but the project continues to bitterly divide his minority government which remains in danger of collapsing.
While the majority was larger than predicted, Sharon is still not out of the woods with four Cabinet members — including his arch rival Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — threatening to resign unless he holds a referendum on the project.
The small rightwing National Religious Party also vowed to bolt the coalition if Sharon fails to put the issue to a plebiscite within a fortnight.
But Sharon, having won the day in parliament, was in no mood for compromise.
“I will never give in to pressures and threats and I won’t accept any ultimatums,” he told the Haaretz daily. “My position on the referendum is unchanged, I am opposed because it will lead to terrible tensions and a rupture in the public.”
Sharon, who has been the subject of recent death threats over his plan, addressed a memorial service yesterday for the Labor Premier Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated nine years ago by a rightwing extremist at a peace rally. “We must never forget the lesson of this day,” declared Sharon.
Tuesday’s vote should now mean all 8,000 Jewish settlers will leave Gaza, a tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean that is home to 1.3 million Palestinians and under occupation since 1967, by next September.
Several hundred residents of four small Jewish enclaves in the northern West Bank also face evacuation as part of a plan which Sharon believes will enable Israel to cement its hold over larger West Bank settlement blocs.
Settlers who have fiercely contested the plan tried to play down the vote, taking heart from the divisions at the heart of the government.
But commentators said there was no denying its significance.
“Right now, the size of the disparity between yea and nay votes, be it large or small, is of no significance. The decision is, for the first time ever, to evacuate or to uproot settlements in Samaria (northern West Bank), the land of our forefathers,” said an editorial in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily.
Netanyahu, who desperately tried to bounce Sharon into agreeing to a referendum before the vote, insisted afterward the government would fall if there was no ballot. Sharon is without a majority in the 120-seat Knesset after traditional allies quit in protest at his project.
Three other ministers from the premier’s Likud party also vowed to quit if Sharon does not agree to a referendum within a fortnight. But the size of his victory — bolstered by support from the chief opposition Labor party — is likely to stiffen his resolve. He demonstrated his ruthless streak immediately after the vote when he sacked two ministers who failed to toe the government line.
The White House described the vote as an “an important step in fulfilling President Bush’s vision of two states living side by side in peace and security.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, welcomed the vote provided “it is a step toward a two-state solution, it does not involve a transfer of settlement activity to the West Bank”.
Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erakat said Israel should begin talks with his government about the pullout “if they are serious about backing the peace process.”
The Islamic resistance movement Hamas said a pullout from Gaza would prove to be a victory for the group which has been behind the majority of deadly anti-Israeli attacks during the course of the four-year uprising.
