Gaza Plan OKd -- but in Diluted Version

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won Cabinet approval Sunday for a watered-down version of his proposal to pull out of the Gaza Strip without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The Cabinet voted 14 to 7 to endorse the withdrawal in principle. The measure puts off, for now, the question of uprooting Jewish settlements.

Sharon envisions removing all 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four others in the northern West Bank in stages by the end of next year. He said the pullback is in the best interest of Israeli security.

“The disengagement is underway. Today the government decided that by the end of 2005 Israel intends to leave Gaza and four settlements in [the northern West Bank],” Sharon said after the vote. “The majority in Israel understands the immense importance of this decision.”

The Cabinet vote marks the first time Israel has unilaterally agreed to withdraw from areas it seized in the 1967 Middle East War. The revised plan still must be approved by the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, where prospects remain uncertain.

Under a last-minute compromise with holdout members of his Likud Party, Sharon agreed to a revision stating the government did not yet have permission to uproot settlements. The Cabinet would have to decide later which settlements would be dismantled -- adequate time, foes hope, to blunt the plan.

Sharon plans to seek such approval in March, after government preparations have been made. For now, the settlements can continue receiving government funding for utilities and other municipal services, but not to pay for new construction.

The compromise was aimed at heading off a damaging rift within the right-leaning Likud, Israel’s dominant party, and at helping shore up Sharon’s governing coalition, whose stability is likely to be tested in the coming weeks.

But the diluted measure drew fire from the right and left. Some Israeli nationalists decried moving toward dismantling settlements, a step they view as giving in to terrorism, while peace advocates criticized what they regarded as the plan’s vagueness.

Palestinian leaders welcomed any Israeli withdrawal, but expressed skepticism over whether the plan would ever be put into place. “If President Bush isn’t reelected, I think this plan will go into history with other plans,” said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet member.

Sharon faces separate no-confidence motions today by the left and by rightists angry over the withdrawal plan and Sharon’s tactics leading up to the vote.

On Friday, Sharon fired two ministers opposed to his plan from the hard-line National Union to swing the Cabinet vote in his favor. Tourism Minister Benny Elon went into hiding over the weekend to avoid receiving the dismissal note. He received the note after being tracked down Saturday night, at the end of the Jewish Sabbath.

The dismissals were the subject of legal challenges before Israel’s Supreme Court hours before the Cabinet session.

A Supreme Court judge recommended delaying the Cabinet vote for two days. But Sharon went ahead with the meeting Sunday, and a judicial panel later declined to block the Cabinet from taking action.

Adding to the tumult, a second right-wing party, the National Religious Party, has threatened to bolt from the coalition in protest, a maneuver that could leave Sharon with a Knesset minority.

The party is split on the issue and will decide later this week whether to stay.

Meanwhile, Labor has indicated it would use its parliamentary bloc to shield Sharon from any efforts to topple him.

Five weeks ago, Sharon watched the original version of his plan go down in defeat during a vote by Likud rank and file. The lopsided loss immediately prompted some pundits to declare his reign in effect over.

He then revised his proposal by recommending that the evacuations be done in four stages -- not one -- and spent much of last week jousting with holdout Likud ministers, who insisted on a compromise that avoided calling for dismantling settlements.

Sharon’s overall plan enjoys the backing of most Israelis, according to public opinion polls.

The White House was embarrassed when the Likud voters defeated Sharon’s plan, which had been warmly embraced by President Bush during the Israeli leader’s visit to Washington in April.

In return for Sharon’s promise to leave the settlements, Bush backed Israel’s long-held desire to keep the largest West Bank settlement blocs and discounted the Palestinians’ claims of a right to return to homes their families fled or were expelled from during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.