Supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon clashed in a heated meeting over a national referendum that could delay or derail next year's planned evacuation of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza.
Tensions flared during Monday's meeting of Sharon's Likud Party members of parliament, called to discuss the referendum idea.
In a surreal twist even for serpentine Israeli politics, Sharon is resisting a referendum on the pullout though he would almost certainly win it, after submitting the withdrawal to two internal party votes, which he lost.
Land of Israel
"I can't let him do this to the Land of Israel," said member of parliament Yehiel Hazan, who opposes the pullout, referring to the biblical term for the land promised to the Jews.
"Gaza is not the Land of Israel!" Sharon backer Doron Attias retorted, reflecting a rabbinical disagreement over where the biblical boundaries were.
Sharon, for decades the patron saint of settlements, building and expanding them while serving in successive Israeli governments, suddenly changed his policy last December and declared that Israel must evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements, because the 8,200 Jews living there have no future among 1.3 million Palestinians.
Sharon's own party balked, and its members are leading the drive for a national referendum. Sharon, who plans to bring the pullout plan to a vote in parliament next week, charges that the referendum is a stalling tactic that would delay the withdrawal for up to a year.
Sharon may not have a year to wait, and pressure on him to agree to the unprecedented vote is building daily.
No confidence
He lost his parliamentary majority over the Gaza plan, and his coalition is vulnerable to no-confidence motions at any time, though so far the opposition has not been able to muster an absolute majority in the parliament to bring up elections, set now for 2006.
Meanwhile, Israeli prison authorities have received orders to prepare for the eventual internment of hundreds of settlers who are opposed to the planned pullout from the Gaza Strip, officials said yesterday.
"We have received general instruction on this matter," a spokesman for the prison service confirmed.
Settlers have warned that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is leading the country into a civil war with his plans to uproot the 8,000 Jewish residents of Gaza from their homes next year as well as the residents of four small settlements in the northern West Bank.
Sharon himself has been the subject of death threats over his proposals and his Justice Minister Tommy Lapid warned recently that administrative detention orders may be imposed on right-wing extremists.
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