Right Wing Party to Stay Despite Gaza Plan Approval

NRP’s faction chief, Nissim Slomiansky, according to a Reuters report, ”After three months we will have to decide where we go from here.”

Despite their party’s decision to stay, two other NRP members — Housing Minister and Chairman Effi Eitam and deputy minister Yitzhak Levy — resigned Tuesday over the approval by Sharon’s cabinet of his plan to withdraw 7,500 Israeli settlers from parts of Gaza.

Sharon’s plan has embroiled his government in crisis since Sunday when the cabinet voted in favor of the plan 14-7 but placed limits on how to implement it.

Touted by Sharon as an effort to reduce conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the plan calls for the removal of 21 Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip. Residents there are surrounded by 1.3 million Palestinians and Sharon has said security concerns make it difficult to ensure their safety.

“Most of the people of Israel understand the tremendous significance of the plan,” Sharon said. “It is good for Israel’s political standing, economy and the demography of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.”

President Bush and other members of the international Quartet — made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia — support the plan and have drafted a separate action plan that calls for the establishment of a World Bank trust fund for Gaza’s reconstruction and development once settlers withdraw.

But, Palestinians say the withdrawal is a smokescreen for Sharon’s true plot to hold onto Israel’s larger settlements in the West Bank, where a majority of the 240,000 Jewish settlers live.

This is not the first time Sharon has tried to pass his plan. The rightist Likud party rejected a May 2 referendum calling for the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza. Sharon has since bowed to pressure and toned down the plan, which calls for a four-phase withdrawal, by agreeing to a cabinet vote at each phase.

Within his government, Sharon’s right-wing opponents have voiced alarm over what they see as a decision that bows to terrorist acts. If the plan goes through, it would mark the first time that Israel has withdrawn settlers from disputed areas.

“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,” Eitam told reporters on Sunday before his resignation.

Eitam and Levy’s departure, along with Sharon’s decision Friday to fire two ministers from the ultra-rightist National Union party apparently to guarantee passage of his plan, leave him with a one-seat majority in parliament. If the NRP does quit in three months it would leave Sharon in control of only 55 seats in the 120-seat parliament and could force him to hold an early election.