In the Knesset, Sharon Promotes Pullout Plan

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went before parliament Thursday to defend his proposal to evacuate 25 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as one poll indicated a narrowing lead in support of the plan among Likud Party members who will vote on it May 2.

In his speech to the Knesset, Sharon warned fellow Likud members that voting down the unilateral withdrawal would jeopardize new U.S. backing for two important Israeli positions: retaining the largest West Bank settlement blocs and rejecting the claims of Palestinians who want to return to ancestral homes in Israel.

“The agreement reached between the U.S. president and me is a comprehensive agreement. Whoever thinks that he can pick and choose whatever is comfortable for him and not fulfill other things, let me clarify: Then this agreement will not go into effect,” Sharon said.

The Knesset came out of recess to hear Sharon defend his disengagement proposal, which envisions evacuating all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank without seeking concessions from the Palestinians.

After the Likud vote, Sharon is to take his proposal to the Cabinet and then to the Knesset for approval.

Sharon suggested in his speech that he would seek Cabinet and Knesset approval of the proposal even if it lost among his party’s rank and file. He earlier had said he would abide by the results of the Likud vote.

Sharon spoke as a poll published Thursday in the newspaper Haaretz indicated slimmer-than-expected Likud support for the plan. The poll of party members, conducted by the company Dialog, showed the proposal leading 47% to 40% among those who said they were likely to vote.

The gap was smaller -- 44% to 40% -- among Likud voters as a whole. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Previous polling during the past week had shown wider margins of support for Sharon’s plan.

The poll’s director, Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, said several polls showed the race tightening even as Sharon appeared to be on a roll. The prime minister garnered endorsements for his plan from President Bush and key Israeli Cabinet ministers and gained politically from Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Abdulaziz Rantisi in Gaza City last weekend.

“It was a week when everything looked like it was working in favor of Sharon, but it worked the other way around,” Fuchs said. He said the poll showed that Likud voters were suspicious of the motives of leaders in their party who recently signed on to the plan.

However, a poll conducted for Israel Radio showed support for the Sharon plan among Likud members who plan to vote holding steady at about 54%.

The proposed withdrawal enjoys wider backing among the public, but only the 200,000 members of the right-leaning Likud will take part in the May 2 balloting.

Sharon once faced an uphill fight to sell the plan to leading politicians within his party, but he no longer needs the referendum to prod them. This week, he won backing from Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Education Minister Limor Livnat -- all but clinching a Cabinet majority.

Those endorsements were the immediate gains from Sharon’s visit to Washington last week, during which Bush said Israel would probably end up keeping some West Bank land. Bush also rejected long-standing claims by Palestinians of a “right of return” to homes they fled or were expelled from during Israel’s war of independence in 1948.

Sharon on Thursday called the U.S. assurances an “unparalleled achievement” for Israel that would be lost if the disengagement plan was defeated. “Whoever is against the agreement also forfeits these accomplishments,” he said.

Sharon has argued that leaving the Gaza Strip would relieve Israel of having to defend an area it would probably have to cede in a peace accord with the Palestinians. The Gaza settlements house about 7,500 Israelis, who live among 1.3 million Palestinians.

Opponents say a withdrawal would amount to a triumph for terrorism and invite more suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis. Hamas, which has carried out most such bombings, has portrayed the proposed pullout as a victory for its Gaza militants.

Sharon’s speech came as Israeli troops were concluding military operations in Gaza that left three Palestinian children, including girls ages 5 and 7, dead Thursday.

In the village of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers as he and other youths threw stones. The 7-year-old girl died of a gunshot wound and the 5-year-old died after inhaling tear gas, medical officials said.

The soldiers were hunting for fighters responsible for launching mortar rounds and missiles into Gaza Strip settlements and communities inside Israel in recent days. A rocket Thursday wounded two Israeli soldiers.

In other developments, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat evicted 21 militants wanted by Israeli authorities from his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israel Radio reported.

The expulsions appear to reflect Arafat’s concern -- following the assassinations of Rantisi and his predecessor, Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin -- that he could be targeted next by Israel, which has threatened to raid the compound to remove the militants.

Times special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.