Israeli Ministers Criticize Peace Plan

A day after pledging to support a U.S.-backed Middle East peace plan, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday faced growing resistance to the initiative from Cabinet ministers and even prominent members of his Likud Party.

Sharon announced Friday that he was “prepared to accept the steps” laid out in the proposal, which calls for a series of reciprocal actions leading to a comprehensive peace settlement and Palestinian statehood within three years.

The statement, issued shortly before the official close of business Friday for the Jewish Sabbath, followed assurances from the Bush administration that the U.S. would address Israel’s “real concerns” as the process moves forward.

The Israeli leader is expected to present the plan, known as the “road map,” to his Cabinet for discussions and a vote that could come as early as today, officials said. But there were growing indications Saturday that he may face more significant opposition than previously thought.

Within Sharon’s 23-member Cabinet, the strongest criticism is expected to come from the ministers of two small parties that support the Jewish settler movement and adamantly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

Yuri Stern, leader of the hard-line National Union Party, said Saturday that his faction would vote against the plan. “The program goes against the essential strategic interests of Israel,” Stern told Israel Radio.

Housing Minister Effi Eitam, leader of the National Religious Party, whose base lies with the settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, also has announced his opposition.

But Sharon also must sway what appears an increasingly sizable -- and skeptical -- contingent of his own party, by far the largest faction within the four-party coalition.

Gideon Saar, a senior Likud lawmaker and former Cabinet secretary, told Israel Radio on Saturday that the proposal was “the most dangerous Middle East plan ever presented.”

“When a government in Israel, certainly one headed by the Likud, accepts obligations included in this plan, this will be a precedent,” Saar said, according to Israel Radio. “We will inflict grave damage on ourselves if we accept this plan.”

Another prominent Likud legislator, Yuval Steinitz, said in an interview Saturday that he opposes the proposal on substantive and procedural grounds, and has called on Sharon to delay the vote.

Sharon’s decision to accept the plan and bring it to a vote was perilously fast, Steinitz said, and gives the government too little time to consider it.

“This road map is completely imbalanced and a distortion of Bush’s original vision” for a two-state solution, said Steinitz, who chairs the Israeli parliament’s influential foreign affairs and defense committee. He said he will vote against the initiative on multiple grounds, among them security concerns.

Aides said Sharon will meet with Likud ministers today to try to muster support for the peace proposal and convince party leaders that given the U.S. assurances, they should move forward without delay.

Late Saturday, Sharon’s defense minister, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, announced that he would vote in favor of the plan, but other Likud ministers, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds the finance portfolio, have yet to announce a position.

Israeli political analyst Joseph Alpher predicted a tough battle in the Cabinet but said Sharon would probably prevail. Alpher described Saar’s opposition as potentially significant because he is considered a close political ally of the prime minister, and said Sharon may choose to delay the vote to try to rally support.

In consultations with coalition members and aides Saturday, Sharon was also said to be searching for artful language that could help him finesse a vote. One such formula might enable the Cabinet to ratify “the steps to be taken in accordance with” the peace plan, but not the plan itself, Alpher said, paving the way for Sharon to gain support from current dissenters and, perhaps, satisfy the United States as well.

Within the coalition, the centrist Shinui party is expected to support the plan. And even if the hard-line factions bolt the government -- considered unlikely so early in the renewed peace process -- Sharon might be able to build a larger, more centrist coalition by inviting the Labor Party, originators of the Oslo peace process, to join.

The Palestinian Cabinet, meanwhile, said Saturday that it regarded “positively” both the U.S. efforts and Sharon’s readiness to present the peace initiative to his government.

After meeting in Ramallah, the Cabinet issued a statement saying it looked forward to an expected summit in the first week of June between President Bush, Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. The statement also called on Israel to halt its “incursions, assassinations, arrests and settlement activities” to create an atmosphere conducive to peace talks.

The peace plan, sponsored by the U.S., United Nations, European Union and Russia, is a detailed strategy for ending 32 months of violence and bloodshed and starting the two sides on a path toward a permanent settlement. It calls for an immediate cease-fire and then a series of confidence-building steps.

The first phase of the plan calls on Palestinians to “undertake visible efforts on the ground” to disarm and dismantle violent Palestinian groups such as Hamas and take steps to rebuild its own security forces, particularly in the West Bank.

Israel would be required to withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas reoccupied since the latest uprising began in September 2000, freeze construction of Jewish settlements and remove settlement outposts erected since March 2001.

Under the later phases envisioned in the three-part plan, the two parties would gradually reach the issues at the heart of their conflict, including the creation of a provisional Palestinian state and questions of refugees, borders, settlements and Jerusalem.

But even as the two sides considered ways to move forward with the peace process, violence continued Saturday. The Israeli army said it shot and killed a Palestinian man near the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip after he fired on troops near a border fence. An army spokeswoman said soldiers later discovered weapons, including several antitank missiles and grenades, near the man’s body.

Also Saturday, Israeli soldiers, backed by dozens of armored vehicles, raided the refugee camp in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, carrying out house-to-house searches for suspected militants. By late Saturday, one suspect had been arrested, along with two American activists with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group.

Members of the group identified those arrested as Mike Johnson, 52, an aircraft engineer from Washington state and Matteo Bernal, 22, of Kentucky. A Palestinian volunteer with them was arrested and quickly released, but the two Americans were still being held as of late afternoon, according to Radhika Sainath, a volunteer with the group.

Sainath said the two were arrested after they accompanied schoolchildren to their homes during the Israeli army’s operation in the camp, at one point coming under fire from rubber bullets. The men were not hurt.

The army issued a statement Saturday saying the activists did not have permission to be in the camp, which is a closed military area.

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Special correspondent Ruth Morris contributed to this report.