Sharon Defends Pursuit of Unilateral Plan

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, confronting jeering rightist hard-liners in his Likud Party, vowed Monday to pursue a unilateral plan to withdraw from some occupied land and unilaterally draw a boundary with the Palestinians if peace efforts under a U.S.-backed peace plan remain stalled.

Die-hard rightists repeatedly disrupted Sharon’s address to a party convention, furious with his plan and his stated preference for the peace plan’s negotiated solution to the Middle East conflict.

“The disengagement plans are mine, and I will carry them out,” Sharon declared.

He reiterated his belief that Palestinians would wind up with much less territory if Israel enacted the separation measures than if they halted suicide bombings and other violence and negotiated permanent peace through the U.S.-backed plan.

Nationalists, who dominate the 3,000-strong Central Committee but not its rank and file, have rebelled over Sharon’s statements that some Jewish settlers will have to be uprooted under any plan put into effect. Sharon said settlers in the West Bank were “courageous and loyal to Zionism” but had to respect the law, decisions of elected leaders, and security forces.