Sharon rejects Gaza referendum

JEWISH settler leaders failed in a rare meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday to persuade him to back their proposal to put his planned Gaza withdrawal to a national referendum.

“He said he totally rejected the demand for a referendum,” Yehoshua Mor-Yosef of the umbrella YESHA Council of Jewish settlements told reporters outside Mr Sharon’s office.

In a statement, the group described the meeting as a “disgrace”. It said Mr Sharon, once seen by YESHA as the champion of settlement on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, is “a closed-minded prime minister” leading Israel into division.

Mr Sharon is struggling to keep his ruling coalition together amid far-right opposition to the plan for evacuating Jewish settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in order to “disengage” from conflict with the Palestinians.

Some 8,000 Jewish settlers live in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.3 million Palestinians. There are 240,000 settlers and two million Palestinians in the West Bank.

There was no immediate word from Mr Sharon’s bureau on the outcome of his meeting with YESHA officials.

“The prime minister read to us from a prepared text,” complained Pinhas Wallerstein, a settler leader, vowing to press ahead with a campaign to block the withdrawal.

Asked if opposition to the pullout could lead to civil war in Israel, Mr Wallerstein told reporters: “Certainly not civil war, but of course there will be a fight.”

YESHA would “continue to bring pressure through the political system to allow the people to decide”.