MIDDLE EAST: Smarting from a crushing defeat in a poll on his Gaza plan in his ruling Likud party, Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon yesterday said he would not abandon his diplomatic initiative but would come up with an alternative version.
"I want to say in the clearest fashion there will be another plan," Mr Sharon reportedly told a meeting of Likud lawmakers in parliament, a day after party members voted 60-40 to reject his initiative to evacuate all 21 settlements in Gaza and another four in the northern West Bank.
With a cloud now hanging over his political future, Mr Sharon yesterday tried to signal that the resounding defeat would not bury his plan. "If anyone thinks for a moment that these results mean deadlock, sitting around and waiting for what will come next, they are wrong," he said.
He did not furnish specific details and his aides were also vague. Some suggested, however, that any new plan would have to be scaled back in order to win sufficient backing in the Likud. Some Likud insiders said one option was for Mr Sharon to propose a withdrawal from only some of the Gaza settlements.
Education Minister Ms Limor Livnat, who unenthusiastically backed the plan, said a new blueprint should not include any evacuation of settlements in the West Bank or in northern Gaza.
But Mr Sharon also faces pressure from the centrist Shinui, the party that most enthusiastically backed his Gaza plan in the coalition. Party leader and Justice Minister Mr Tommy Lapid indicated yesterday that Shinui would not wait around forever for the prime minister to come up with a new plan: "We are not here to save Sharon from the Likud, but to save the state from the Likud," he said.
Opposition leader Mr Shimon Peres said his Labour Party should press for new elections. "It turns out that Arik Sharon, whether or not he likes it, does not have a mandate from his own party. The nation must thus be given a chance to vote on the matter," he said.
The head of the prime minister's bureau, Mr Dov Weisglass, spoke by phone yesterday with Dr Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to President Bush, in a bid to reassure the Americans that Mr Sharon remained committed to his plan.
Settlers in Gaza, who had campaigned vigorously against the prime minister's plan, yesterday celebrated by laying the cornerstone for a new neighbourhood in the Gush Katif settlement bloc.