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.
PHOTO: AP
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," 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.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS