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Sharon stands firm on plan to pull out of Gaza

PHOTO: AP

Buoyed by opinion polls, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed yesterday to forge a new government if pro-settler coalition partners try to block his plan to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Once considered the godfather of the settlement movement, Sharon won a confidence vote in parliament by a single vote late on Monday after saying he had ordered that plans be drawn up to remove 17 of the 20 Gaza enclaves.

The announcement, which stunned friends and foes alike, marked the first time Sharon had revealed details for such an extensive pullout from land Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

While Sharon's ruling coalition is in turmoil, an opinion poll published yesterday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed 59 percent of Israelis supported uprooting Gaza settlements and 34 percent opposed such a move.

In remarks published yesterday elaborating on the initiative, Sharon said the process would take one to two years and would include evacuation of three of the more than 120 settlements in the West Bank.

"I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza."

Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister

"I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza," he said in an interview with the daily Haaretz.

He said he would seek US approval and financial aid to "relocate" about 7,500 settlers from the strip.

Polls show Israelis largely willing to part with Gaza. Its enclaves require a heavy military presence to protect and have little of the biblical significance that draws Jews to the West Bank, where more than 200,000 settlers live.

Sharon's plans, laid out to his right-wing Likud party in a tense meeting on Monday, enraged members of the Jewish settler movement he championed for decades.

A Cabinet minister from the far-right National Religious Party, one of Sharon's coalition partners, responded with a threat to resign after storming out of parliament and abstaining from the confidence vote.

"We won't participate in this," Housing Minister Effi Eitam told Israel Radio of Sharon's plans to evict settlers.

If Sharon presents such a plan to the US, "the timing of our departure would be merely tactical," he said.

The National Religious Party, headed by Eitam, has six seats in parliament, and if it left the coalition Sharon would command a shaky 62-58 majority in the 120-member legislature, including another seven-seat pro-settler party.

"I will not hesitate to set up another government," Sharon told Yedioth Ahronoth. "Not that I am rushing to take such a step, but I have no intention of being at the mercy of factions ... that won't permit me to handle matters of state."

Palestinians and Israel's left-wing opposition met Sharon's plan with skepticism, and some critics suggested he was trying to distract public attention from a widening corruption probe focusing on him and his family. Sharon denies any wrongdoing.
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