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Israel minister urges Likud ‘Yes’ for Gaza pullout

* Mofaz says rejection means squandering historic opportunity
* Sharon threatens government collapse if Likud votes out Gaza plan

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defence minister urged the ruling Likud party on Saturday to support a proposed Gaza pullout, saying a rejection would mean squandering a historic opportunity.

Shaul Mofaz’s appeal on Israel radio was a bid to shore up support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to evacuate all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank before a key Likud vote on Sunday. Polls show more party members against the plan than for it.

“The Sunday vote is a historic chance for Likud members to decide the fate of a plan that is good for Israel. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity,” Mofaz said.

Sharon warned on Friday that voting down the plan in the referendum could force new elections, but stopped short of threatening to resign, a move that would bring down his government.

“Those who will vote against my plan will vote against me, and those who will vote for my plan, will vote for me,” Sharon said in televised interviews broadcast Friday evening.

Should his fellow Likud party members reject the proposal to evacuate 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four on the West Bank, Sharon said “it would be very difficult to lead the country,” that early elections could be called for and that “terror would increase.”

He said such an eventuality would also constitute “the greatest victory for (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat and for (the Gaza-based radical Islamist) Hamas.”

When asked what he would do, should a no vote prevail, Sharon skirted the question.

He said the party was not voting Sunday on whether he should resign. “The issue at stake is whether the Likud will continue to lead the country.”

“The extreme right has caused Likud governments to fall in the past, such those led by Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, it wants to cause my government’s collapse,” said Sharon.

Likud stalwarts oppose ceding any land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and sought by Palestinians for their state, in line with traditional party policy. Under the plan, Israel would retain large West Bank settlement blocs, a move Palestinians regard as a land grab.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat appealed to the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia — the so-called Quartet — to prevent Sharon from taking steps he said contradicted a US-backed road map to peace. —Reuters

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