On 27 October Ariel Sharon faces the most important vote of his premiership, writes Graham Usher Next week Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will submit the disengagement plan his cabinet passed on 6 June to the Knesset. The Israeli parliament will be asked to approve the government's "intention" to withdraw its forces from most of Gaza and a small part of the West Bank by the end of 2005. It is not being asked to approve the evacuation of 21 settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank. That decision will require separate cabinet votes, the first of which will be in March. Sharon, his supporters in Likud and the main opposition Labour Party are all flagging parliament's vote on 27 October as the point of no return for the disengagement plan. Success -- in their eyes -- will grant it the only political legitimacy it needs and expedite the legislation required to make it happen. Failure will mean the abandonment of the plan altogether or new Israeli elections, which may amount to the same thing: Sharon's opponents in Likud have already made it clear that new elections will mean a challenge to his leadership. According to current assessments -- and a week is an eternity in Israeli politics -- Sharon will win the vote. He has 25 of Likud's 40 MPs on his side, his Shinnui coalition partner as well as the opposition Labour, Yabad-Meretz and Arab List parties (the two other Arab parties -- Hadash and Balad -- have said they will vote against the disengagement plan). This should give him 65 votes in the 120-member Knesset. But questions remain about the response to defeat of the 15 or so Likud rebels and Israel's rightist, settler and orthodox parties, all of which oppose the disengagement. Signs of the fractures to come appeared this week. On 17 October -- in their first meeting since Sharon unveiled his plan in December 2003 -- Sharon met with leaders of Israel's settler movement. They accused him variously of betrayal, "destructive dictatorship" and "causing a rift in the nation". At the very least -- they insisted -- Sharon should bring the disengagement plan to the public in the form of national referendum. Sharon dismissed all charges, arguing that it was the rabbis who were calling on soldiers to refuse any settlement evacuation orders who were the real instigators of a "war between brothers". As for a referendum, "why should I agree to a referendum when former Prime Minister Menachem Begin did not take that route when he decided to evacuate Sinai and when former Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir did not ask for a referendum before embarking on the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991?" he asked. The settlers described the meeting as a "disgrace" and vowed to mobilise "200,000 of our people" to thwart the disengagement. Things were less acrimonious but just as tense the next day when Sharon met his Likud parliamentary faction. Led by Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Limor Livnat, the demand was again for a referendum, though perhaps less as a ruse to foil the plan (which is the settlers' intention) than as an escape route from taking responsibility for a decision that is popular with the Israeli people but deeply unpopular with the Likud Central Committee, which decides which members can run for parliament. Sharon, again, was dismissive, agreeing only that a Likud committee might "examine" the issue of a referendum. He is gambling that if parliament approves the disengagement the momentum currently gathering behind the referendum call will start to sag. He is also threatening to fire any Likud minister or deputy- minister that votes against the plan on 27 October. Where will this leave the Likud rebels? Short of swelling their ranks with enough numbers to defeat the plan in parliament it would seem they have only one bullet left in their magazine. This is to use funds earmarked for the disengagement in next year's budget as an excuse to vote against the budget when it is put before parliament in December. Unlike the disengagement plan Sharon does not have the support of the opposition parties for the budget -- he is dependent on Likud. And if he cannot command a parliamentary majority for the budget his government falls, paving the way to new elections, a challenge to his leadership, and at the very least pushing back his disengagement timetable by months. The Palestinian Authority has watched these skirmishes inside Israel's body politic with about as much input as had the PLO when it was exiled in Tunis. Its sole succour has been a recent statement by Europe's foreign ministers that EU support for the disengagement plan is conditional on it being an integral part of the long-shelved roadmap. It was a message repeated by French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, currently on a state visit to Israel. Sharon told him what he has been telling everyone with ears to hear. "We will not return to the outline of the roadmap until the Palestinians fulfil the first stage. And unfortunately we do not see the slightest sign that anything is happening in this regard," he said on 18 October. (see p.5)
