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.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS