Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday abandoned a planned trip to the US this week. During a bruising Cabinet session, he also insisted that he would draw up a new plan to withdraw from settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank regardless of his defeat by members of his Likud party in a referendum.
Sharon's office said the prime minister would be too busy to travel to the US, where he was to address the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, and meet the president.
Sharon gave no hint of what his revised proposal might include, but said it would be released in three weeks after consultations with ministers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
His disengagement plan and his defeat in the referendum nine days ago have exposed rifts in the Cabinet, underlined on Sunday when ministers stormed out of the meeting.
Justice Minister Tommy Lapid said that he and his fellow ministers from the Shinui party would resign from the government unless Sharon introduced a new plan.
Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon, the rightwing ministers of transport and tourism respectively, walked out of the meeting in protest at the discussion on withdrawal from settlements.
Ministers from Sharon's Likud party also showed uneasiness with the prime minister's direction. Minister without Portfolio Uzi Landau said it was undemocratic to continue discussing settlement withdrawal after Likud had rejected it. Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a potential rival to Sharon as party leader, urged the prime minister to respect the decision of the party. Sharon held a private meeting with Netanyahu to work out an alternative disengagement plan but the pair could not agree.
Netanyahu and Limor Livnat, the education minister, and Silvan Shalom, the foreign minister, betrayed Sharon by agreeing to back his plan but then refusing to campaign for him, a major factor in his defeat.
At the meeting, Netanyahu told the prime minister that three weeks was not enough time to come up with a proper alternative. He said the Likud poll "is binding for all Likud members, including the prime minister."
Netanyahu said most Likud members would be prepared to make concessions, but not in the midst of terror, Israel Radio reported.
Tommy Lapid, who called for the Cabinet discussion, said a new plan should include the renewal of peace talks with the Palestinians.
"We can't now say, `That's it, they rejected the disengagement plan, we're done, everything is as it was' -- in opposition to the American position, in opposition to the European position, in opposition to the Arab world, in opposition to most of the Israeli public."
Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, said he respected the members of the Likud party but did not believe the referendum result accurately reflected their beliefs.
"I'm not sure that the result reflects the decisive portion of Likud members," he told Israel Radio, citing the voter turnout of about 50 percent.
He told the Cabinet that the results indicate the government must present alternatives.
He also said the disengagement issue would be brought before the Cabinet.
"At some point, there will certainly be a discussion in the government," he said.
While Israeli ministers try to work out their position, there are signs that the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, who has been sidelined by Sharon's recent proposals, might play a greater role in negotiations.
Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, is due to meet him next week in Germany and Bush said he would write to Qureia to underline that the US still supported the road map.
The rapprochement with Qureia comes after a bad month for American-Arab relations with revelations of US troops torturing Iraqis and the president seeming to give Israel his strongest public demonstration of support by saying that the US recognized large settlement blocks in the West Bank and Palestinians should not have the right to return to homes lost in Israel in 1948.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS