"Today there are 1.8 million Palestinians fed by international organizations," he said."Would you like to take this upon yourselves? Where will we get the money?"
The peace plan -- ?backed by the US, the UN, the EU and Russia -- ?is divided into three stages. In the initial phase, the Palestinians must crack down on militants, while Israel is to withdraw its troops gradually from Palestinians areas and halt the growth of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
One Likud lawmaker, Yehiel Hazan, asked what the settlement freeze meant for Jewish families living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sharon, a leading patron of the settlement movement, appeared to brush aside that stipulation in the road map.
"There is no restriction here, and you can build for your children and grandchildren, and I hope for your great-grandchildren as well," he replied.
The plan's aim is a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement and a Palestinian state within three years.
Before Sunday's Cabinet vote, Israeli hawks saw themselves on the ascendancy.
Sharon assembled a government loaded with right-wing ministers after Likud scored a landslide victory in elections in January. The violence has driven many Israelis to the right, and many Cabinet members are on record as opposing a Palestinian state.
With Israel's center-left Labor Party and the traditional peace camp in disarray, many experts predicted that peace negotiations were unlikely to resume.
Yet Sunday's Cabinet vote marked the first time that any Israeli government had approved the principle of a future Palestinian state.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a prominent hawk who nonetheless voted for the plan, stressed that "we did not vote for an international agreement."
"This is not a legal document; there is no sort of commitment here," he told army radio. "Rather, this is a declaration of diplomatic intentions."
Still, the emphasis is on diplomacy for now.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, speaking from his badly damaged compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said that he welcomed Israel's support for the road map.
But he added that Israel's list of reservations "raises question marks about this acceptance."
In violence on Monday, two Palestinian men from Gaza managed to get past the border fence and enter southern Israel, the army said. One was shot dead, and the other surrendered. No weapons were found on either man, it said.
Also, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and killed in a West Bank village near the town of Qalqilya during an exchange of fire between Palestinian militants and troops, the Israeli radio reported.
Meanwhile, in a poll published on Monday in Yediot Ahronot, a leading daily, 56 percent of Israelis believe that the country should support the road map, versus 34 percent who are opposed. But when asked if the peace plan would lead to a comprehensive Middle East agreement, 51 percent thought that it would not and only 43 percent thought that it would.
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