<font color=brown>Now the whole Sharon vote is making more sense........they voted in favor of withdrawal but in 4 stages, and not for 9 mos. with each stage requiring a new vote.
That sounds like a plan.......NOT!<font color=black>
ted
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Sharon's Coalition Wobbles After Gaza Pullout Vote
Sun Jun 6, 2004 08:37 PM ET
(Page 1 of 2)
By Mark Heinrich
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition was in danger of collapse on Monday as a rightist partner considered bolting after he extracted a cabinet majority in favor of his Gaza withdrawal plan. It passed by a 14-7 vote on Sunday but only after Sharon placated mutinous ministers in his own right-wing party by agreeing not to evacuate Jewish settlements for at least nine months and then only in four phases each requiring another vote.
Hedged by politicking, the historic decision could become a hostage to fortune if Palestinian militants pull off further major attacks in their resolve to prove they forced an Israeli retreat, which could harden rightists against carrying it out.
President Bush endorsed Sharon's blueprint to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians as a potential means of reviving the U.S.-backed "road map" plan for a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in war with Arabs 37 years ago.
Polls show most Israelis are behind Sharon too, seeing Gaza as a bloody liability rather than biblical birthright touted by 7,500 Jews who carved out enclaves amid 1.3 million Palestinians crammed into the rest of the tiny coastal strip.
But the National Religious Party, linchpin of Sharon's Knesset (parliament) majority, was debating whether to quit the cabinet in protest at a vote that the NRP's leader branded a recipe for a militant takeover in Gaza endangering Israel.
"No tricks of language can cover up one of the darkest decisions ever taken by an Israeli government, which means expulsion of Jewish residents and setting up a Hamas terrorist state," Housing Minister Effi Eitam told reporters.
Political sources said Eitam favored jumping ship at an NRP meeting late on Sunday but the second NRP minister demurred, believing the party had a better chance of heading off "disengagement" from within the government.
The meeting including the NRP's seven Knesset deputies ended inconclusively and was followed by consultations with party rabbis. Further deliberations were expected on Monday.
TENUOUS ONE-SEAT MAJORITY
Sharon was clinging to a majority of just one seat in the Knesset after firing two ministers of the ultra-rightist National Union to help secure the cabinet vote.
If the NRP abandoned Sharon, his coalition would drop to 55 seats in the 120-mandate parliament, opening the way either to a possible unity government with the pro-withdrawal center-left Labour Party, which has 19 legislators, or new elections. Continued ...
reuters.com |
