ISRAEL: Unable to get his Gaza disengagement plan passed by his cabinet yesterday because he lacks sufficient support, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is threatening to fire some of his ministers and thus create a majority to ensure the plan's approval next week.
Mr Sharon was humiliated earlier this month when his own Likud Party rejected the plan in a referendum, and he was further embarrassed yesterday when the cabinet arithmetic showed him at least a vote or two short of a ministerial majority for a superficially amended version of the plan.
But he remains determined to push through the initiative, which involves the evacuation, with no formal agreement with the Palestinian leadership, of all 7,800 Jewish settlers and all military personnel from the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005.
During a seven-hour debate, the Prime Minister reserved most of his bitterness for his Finance Minister and would-be successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, who, Mr Sharon intimated, initially agreed to support the plan but changed his mind on sensing the opportunity to make political capital.
There were "those members among us", the Prime Minister said, "who want to exploit this hour of crisis for promoting some personal plan". Unlike these unnamed colleagues, Mr Sharon said, he was committed to the national interest, which made a Gaza withdrawal an imperative.
Mr Netanyahu retorted that "Nobody in this room has a monopoly on the interests of the state," and noted that Likud Party leaders like himself and Mr Sharon were obliged to honour the Likud voters' rejection of the plan four weeks ago. "If there is democracy, it binds all of us."
Outside the Prime Minister's office as he spoke, Likud activists and hundreds of Gaza Jewish settlers were demonstrating their opposition to a pull-out, vowing that Mr Sharon would pay a heavy political price if he defied them.
While Mr Netanyahu opposes the pull-out because he regards it as rewarding terrorism, with Israel perceived to be capitulating under suicide-bomber assault, other right-wing ministers also oppose the very idea of removing Jews from their homes in any territory controlled by Israel.
Most Israelis, by contrast, support disengagement, being anxious to shed control of the hostile, densely populated Gaza area. The Palestinian leadership has offered grudging support, but only provided the Gaza pull-out is part of an eventual move towards a full withdrawal from the West Bank as well, something Mr Sharon emphatically rejects.
Mr Sharon knew before the meeting began that he didn't have enough votes to get approval for his plan, or even for its first stage, which envisages the evacuation of Gaza's three most isolated settlements. And so he announced that the vote would take place only next week - by which time, he indicated, he would find a majority one way or another.
"I am determined to pass this plan," he said, "even if I am forced to change the make-up of the government or to take unprecedented political steps."
Aides to the Prime Minister said last night that Mr Sharon might dismiss Mr Netanyahu or try to call early elections, but it is more likely that he will target four far less prominent ministers from two small, hardline coalition factions - the National Union and the National Religious Party - for the political chop.
At the same time, the Justice Minister, Yosef Lapid, from the centrist Shinui Party, is trying to mediate a compromise which would leave the coalition intact and see approval next week of the first stage of the Gaza plan.