Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon said yesterday he would seek cabinet and parliamentary approval for his Gaza withdrawal plan after he returns from meeting President Bush in Washington next month.
However, legal woes threatening to topple Mr Sharon and scuttle his diplomatic initiative continue to deepen.
Mr Sharon's remarks indicated that he intends pressing ahead with his plan to disengage from the Palestinians despite the fact that he has become increasingly embroiled in a bribery scandal that could force him from office. Some of his critics say his recent diplomatic activity is a product of his legal troubles and is an attempt to obfuscate them.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the prime minister's son, Gilad, had to hand over documents to police regarding a corruption scandal in which the prime minister is allegedly involved.
Labor Party lawmaker Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Mr Sharon told a closed-door session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that if he returns from a meeting with President Bush on April 14th "with backing from the Americans and everything is okay, he intends to immediately present his programme to the cabinet for approval". Mr Sharon also warned the far-right flank of his ruling coalition that if it prevented his Gaza plan from passing in the government, he would not go to elections but would form a new government. This would almost certainly include the centre-left Labor Party.
"If the parties leave the coalition, on the same day I will form a new government," the prime minister's spokesman, Mr Assaf Shariv, quoted Mr Sharon as saying. "There is no way I will go to an election." Labor lawmakers, however, said they would not decide on whether to join a government under Mr Sharon until it was known if he was going to be indicted.
The prime minister's Gaza plan includes the evacuation of most, if not all, of the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip as well as several in the West Bank.
Mr Sharon's declaration that he will seek approval of his plan next month, comes just a day after the state prosecutor, Ms Edna Arbel, recommended he and his son be charged with bribery in what has become known as the "Greek Island Affair". Mr Sharon is alleged to have used his position as foreign minister in 1999 to help a wealthy Israeli real estate developer promote a tourism project on a Greek island.
The developer, Mr David Appel, who is also a powerbroker within the ruling Likud party, has already been indicted for bribery in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to the prime minister's son. The attorney general is expected to decide within weeks whether to accept the state prosecutor's recommendation to indict Mr Sharon.
Some of the prime minister's close advisers have said that if charged, he will suspend himself for the duration of a trial, but many believe he will be left with only one option - to resign.
While the scandal has eroded Mr Sharon's standing in his own party, it has also exposed him to attacks from right-wing opponents of his Gaza withdrawal plan. They accuse him of floating a diplomatic initiative to divert attention from the legal imbroglio.