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.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS