JERUSALEM, 10 May 2004 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday canceled a planned trip to the United States next week, saying he intended to focus his energies on patching together a new blueprint for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip after his party rejected his original plan.
Sharon told his Cabinet ministers during a stormy meeting yesterday that he will present them a revised version of his “disengagement plan” in the next three weeks. He did not reveal what changes he is contemplating or how he would satisfy his deeply divided coalition.
The announcement was the latest sign of Sharon’s determination to push ahead with his plan after its overwhelming defeat in a May 2 referendum of Likud party members. That vote, though nonbinding, would make it difficult for many Likud Cabinet ministers to support the plan.
Sharon told his Cabinet he was canceling his trip to Washington, scheduled for next week, so he could work on the new plan. During the trip, Sharon was to have addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, and was expected to meet with US President George W. Bush, who had endorsed Sharon’s plan as a valuable step to reviving peace efforts.
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon’s biggest rival and a reluctant supporter of the plan ahead of the referendum, said three weeks was not enough time to come up with a proper alternative and urged Sharon to honor the party’s decision.
“A diplomatic program isn’t a pair of socks that can be changed every day,” Netanyahu said, according to participants in the meeting.
In considering a new plan, Sharon asked the ministers to decide how Israel can best fight terror and how it can combat the demographic problem that Palestinians will soon outnumber Jews in the combined area of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Later yesterday, Palestinians fired on a group of settlers holding a memorial ceremony at the spot along a road in the Gaza Strip where a pregnant woman and her four young daughters were killed by gunmen last week.
Scores of settlers, some carrying babies, jumped behind concrete barriers and scrambled to hide behind cars, according to television footage shown on Israel’s Channel 10. One woman ran, carrying a baby carriage, for the safety of a nearby bus. Settlers armed with assault rifles returned fire.
Soldiers also shot at the three Palestinians responsible for the attack. No injuries were immediately reported on either side.
