Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged Thursday to push ahead with his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip despite a stinging public rebuke from his Likud Party.
Sharon will try to build a "strong, stable coalition" even though his hard-line party voted Wednesday against joining forces with the center-left Labor Party, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
PHOTO: AFP
"The prime minister is determined to continue with the disengagement plan and the diplomatic process and he will try to build a stable coalition," according to a statement from Sharon's office.
The vote at a Likud Party convention Wednesday was not close with 60 percent in favor of banning Labor. The opposition party's inclusion was needed to assure Cabinet support of the Gaza withdrawal next year.
Even Sharon's own proposal, to allow him to negotiate with all the Zionist parties, was narrowly voted down. A defiant Sharon indicated he would ignore the results, but even supporters wondered if the battle-scarred political infighter would succeed.
Abandoned by traditional hard-line supporters because of his plan to withdraw from all Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements in September 2005, Sharon launched coalition talks with the Labor Party.
Labor would ensure Sharon a majority for the plan both in his Cabinet and in parliament, something he doesn't have now.
The votes could stall or even scuttle the Gaza withdrawal, although Sharon has insisted he intends to carry it out. The Cabinet must vote on each stage that involves evacuation of Israeli settlements, and Sharon would find it hard to muster a majority without Labor, because of the opposition in his own party.
Even before the vote, Sharon aides said it would not be legally binding on the prime minister.
Speaking at the convention, Sharon was stoic in the face of loud heckling. "Likud will not disqualify or boycott anyone. Likud will conduct negotiations with all Zionist parties for expanding the coalition," he said, as opponents chanted, "Likud yes, Labor no."
However, opponents said he would not be able to approach Labor now. "Sharon cannot ignore the wishes of his party," said Likud lawmaker Michael Ratzon.
The Labor Party denounced the results, saying Likud had become "a movement that destroys all chances to bring about an end to violence in the region." The Labor statement said ``elections must be called immediately.''
General elections are due by 2006, and a new government could be a short-term affair. Likud-Labor coalition negotiations stalled earlier over domestic issues.
Labor strongly favors Sharon's ``unilateral disengagement'' plan. Labor has long advocated an Israeli pullout from Gaza and most of the West Bank for peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the two areas, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
On May 2, about 60 percent of Likud Party members voting in a non-binding referendum turned down Sharon's plan, which would remove all 21 settlements from Gaza and four of the 150 from the West Bank.
Sharon, who refuses to negotiate with the Palestinians, says the plan is needed to boost Israel's security and ensure its Jewish majority.
Ignoring the referendum, Sharon fired a pro-settlement party from his coalition and saw another resign in order to ram the plan through his Cabinet. But he lost his parliamentary majority in the process.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
‘RADICALLY DIFFERENT’: The Kremlin said no accord would be reached if the new deal with Kyiv’s input did not remain within the limits fixed by the US and Russia in August Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia on Friday accused him and his EU backers of seeking to “torpedo” a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Today’s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amidst Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement on Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line, but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by
RSS