Sharon to try again after Gaza plan rejected

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to tinker with his plan for pulling out of Gaza and four West Bank settlements in an effort to salvage the proposal in the wake of its resounding defeat in a ruling party referendum.

He told a meeting of MPs from his Likud Party today that he would submit his new plan to the government and parliament for approval, according to officials at the meeting.

“I want to say in the clearest fashion there will be another plan that I will come up with,” he told the meeting. “I will come up with a plan that will get wider support.”

Likud members voted down Sharon’s “disengagement plan” in a weekend referendum, leaving the proposal’s future in doubt and the premier scrambling for an alternative.

With a turnout of only half the 193,000 Likud members, 60% voted against the plan, leaving Sharon politically weakened. “Crushing defeat,” read a headline in the Maariv newspaper.

Sharon said today that he “respects” the outcome of the vote, but said he would not drop the idea of a withdrawal. He had defended his plan as the best way to get security for Israelis in the absence of peace moves.

He also said it was needed to diffuse international pressure on Israel for greater concessions and would help Israel escape the demographic problem that Palestinians will soon outnumber Jews in the area including the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

“The question is should Israel lead or be led, does time work in our favour or against us, and if what we are proposing could be accepted in the world,” Sharon told the Likud meeting. “I intend to present a plan to the government and the parliament that will push forward Israel’s positions”

The referendum was marred by violence. Palestinian gunmen killed a pregnant Gaza settler and her four daughters, aged two to 11, in an ambush on her car. Israel killed four Palestinian militants in the West Bank and destroyed a Hamas-affiliated radio station in Gaza in missile strikes.

The Bush administration said it would consult with Sharon on what to do next.

Palestinian leaders, who have dismissed Sharon’s unilateral plan as an attempt to tighten Israel’s hold over large parts of the West Bank, played down the vote as an internal Israeli matter.

Early Monday, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy from Beit Lahia in Gaza died from Israeli gunshot wounds suffered on Saturday. Khaled Abu Olba, was shot after entering a military zone, residents said. Also, 17-year-old Ahmad al-Khawaldi died in Gaza of wounds he sustained last month.

Witnesses said he was throwing stones at Israeli soldiers when he was shot in the head.

In Israel, Sharon’s party allies warned that Likud was becoming increasingly less appealing to moderate Israeli voters and could get hurt in the next election. Opinion polls have shown a majority of Israelis support the withdrawal plan.

Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, a Sharon confidant, said disengagement is inevitable and that the prime minister is determined to move forward.

Sharon could rearrange his Cabinet by bringing in the opposition Labour Party, a move that could split Likud. Labour has said it would join only if the attorney general clears Sharon in two corruption probes. The rulings are expected in coming weeks.

Sharon could also opt for early elections, three years ahead of schedule. Or he could hold a national referendum, which would require special legislation that could take months to move through parliament.

Israeli settlers in Gaza began work on a new neighbourhood in the Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim today. Settlers said the expansion was a response to Sharon’s plan and the shooting attack.