Peres fears assassination of Sharon over Gaza

OPPOSITION leader Shimon Peres yesterday said he feared Israeli extremists might try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the target of growing far-right fury over a planned withdrawal from Gaza next year.

Mr Peres, the leader of the centre-left Labour party, said the divisive atmosphere recalled the climate when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to his peace deals with the Palestinians.

“I am very fearful of the incitement, of the difficult things that are being said,” said Mr Peres.

“I fear that someone will try to assassinate the Prime Minister,” he said.

Israeli settlers in occupied Gaza and the West Bank once saw Mr Sharon as their champion but now brand him a traitor. Settler leaders boycotted a meeting with Mr Sharon aimed at calming tensions over his disengagement plan.

The snub came a day after Mr Sharon faced rebellious lawmakers of his own Likud party who warned the party could split unless he put the pullout plan to a national referendum.

Mr Sharon bought time by agreeing to a task force to consider the matter.

Adding to Mr Sharon’s troubles, leading right-wing rabbis have begun urging soldiers to refuse orders to dismantle settlements built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

In response, the army is planning to build a mock settlement to train troops to remove settlers who may barricade themselves inside homes and synagogues or even resist violently.

Security has been tightened around Mr Sharon while police investigate a series of telephone death threats against him.

Avraham Dichter, head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, said in July there were Jewish extremists who wanted to see Mr Sharon dead.

Mr Sharon’s blueprint calls for removing all 21 settlements in Gaza. Most Israelis favour the plan.