Israeli parliament rejects referendum for Gaza pullout

Israel’s parliament today swept aside another potential obstacle to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, overwhelmingly rejecting a proposal for holding a national referendum on the pullout.

Opponents of the withdrawal had latched onto the plebiscite as a last-ditch legislative effort to delay and ultimately scuttle the withdrawal, set for the summer. The defeat today left withdrawal opponents with few remaining options.

Approval of a referendum could have brought down Sharon’s government and forced new elections. Sharon’s main coalition partner, the moderate Labour Party, had warned it would quit the coalition if a referendum were approved. Labour is a staunch supporter of the Gaza withdrawal.

In other developments today, Israeli troops arrested eight supporters of the militant Islamic Jihad group in the West Bank on suspicion they were trying to build rockets. One soldier was lightly hurt by an explosive device thrown at troops during the raid in the town of Jenin.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas held talks late yesterday with leaders of Islamic Jihad on the terms of the participation of militant groups in the PLO. Such participation was agreed upon in principle in a meeting between Abbas and opposition factions earlier this month in Cairo.

The negotiations were not expected to produce results before July parliamentary elections, the first real measure of popular support for the militants.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, meanwhile, sharply criticised the US after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated support for Israel’s plans to keep large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank. “This (US) policy is completely incomprehensible,” Qureia told reporters today.

Israeli officials last week confirmed plans to build 3,500 homes in the Maaleh Adumim settlement, the West Bank’s largest, near Jerusalem.

With the expansion and a construction of separation barrier, Israel is effectively cutting off east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ intended capital, from a future state in the West Bank.

US officials said over the weekend that while they opposed continued construction in settlements, the demographic realities created by the settlement could not be ignored in a final peace deal.

“The American view is that while we will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations, the changes on the ground, the existing major Israeli population centres, will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiations,” Rice told Israel Radio.

The fate of Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements is to be negotiated in talks on a final peace deal.

The Palestinians have complained that in signalling support for the annexation of some settlements by Israel, the US is pre-empting the outcome of negotiations. “The US administration is giving us signs that it supports the Israeli aggression,” Qureia said today.

The Maaleh Adumim expansion is expected to be a key item in separate meetings Sharon and Bush will hold with Bush in April.

In Israel’s parliament, legislators voted 72-39 to reject the referendum proposal.

Sharon had accused withdrawal opponents of trying to buy time by seeking a referendum; preparations for a national vote would have taken months, during which opponents could try again to bring down Sharon. According to opinion polls, a large majority of Israelis support the Gaza withdrawal.

Before the vote, a leading withdrawal opponent, legislator Uzi Landau from Sharon’s Likud Party, met with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, to try to persuade him to support the referendum. Shas controls 11 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Yosef opposes a Gaza withdrawal. However, he also opposes holding a referendum fearing it would give Israel’s secular majority a tool to use against the ultra-Orthodox minority.

In the end, the rabbi instructed the Shas legislators to vote against the referendum.

The proposed dismantling of all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank this summer has split Likud, a bastion of settlement backers taken by surprise by Sharon’s sudden turnabout last year. Sharon was the main sponsor of settlement construction before presenting his pullout plan, explaining it would help Israel hang on to parts of the West Bank.

The Gaza plan cleared a larger threat over the weekend, when the opposition Shinui Party changed its position and said it would vote in favour of the 2005 state budget this week. Sharon has to get the budget passed by Thursday, or step down. Until Shinui’s about-face, he did not have an assured majority.

However, Israel’s Supreme Court agreed today to hear three petitions against the legality of the disengagement-settler compensation law that provides the legal framework for the Gaza withdrawal. The hearing is set for April 8, before an expanded panel of 11 judges, the Courts Administration said. Such a large panel is generally reserved for landmark cases.

Israel’s military, meanwhile, lifted a blanket closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which had been imposed last Wednesday for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Such closures are routine security measures. Even after the lifting of the ban, entry of Palestinians to Israel remains severely restricted.