Netanyahu to Resign, Citing Gaza Departure

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday abruptly announced he was quitting the Israeli government to protest the planned Gaza Strip withdrawal, as the Cabinet gave final approval to evacuating three isolated Jewish settlements that are among the most ideologically fervent.

Netanyahu, who is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s prime challenger for leadership of the conservative Likud Party, voted to back the pullout in earlier Cabinet decisions, but his maneuvers often appeared aimed at undermining it. He grew more openly defiant as the Aug. 17 deadline approached.

Netanyahu, a former prime minister, has said that leaving Gaza would encourage terrorism by making it appear that Israel fled from Palestinian militants, who have carried out dozens of attacks on settlers and soldiers there during more than four years of conflict. He announced his decision during Sunday’s Cabinet session.

“I cannot stop [the pullout], but I can be at peace with myself,” Netanyahu said during a televised news conference. “I cannot be a party to a move that I believe will endanger the security and will divide the people.”

His decision to bolt on the eve of the withdrawal, after spearheading aggressive economic reforms to streamline government services and cut spending, was seen as a carefully timed tactic of the Likud’s right wing, which has backed settlers trying to derail Sharon’s pullout plan. Netanyahu’s resignation could open a convulsive period within Likud and perhaps portend a split in Israel’s dominant political party.

“Netanyahu positioned himself in the middle of the right wing. If he wants to be considered as the leader of the right, this is the right timing for him,” said Gideon Doron, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University.

National elections are scheduled for November 2006, but most observers expect an early vote, perhaps by spring. Netanyahu has made no secret of his intention to challenge the prime minister. Sharon has been irked by the finance minister’s moves, such as a failed attempt to submit the pullout to a referendum. But he backed Netanyahu’s budgetary belt-tightening.

Sharon’s camp viewed the resignation, which will take effect 48 hours after the notification, as having more to do with electoral jousting than the Gaza pullout, also known as “disengagement.”

“One thing is clear: Disengagement will go through according to plan and on schedule,” Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said.

Sharon named a close ally, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, acting finance minister and sought to calm jittery financial markets by promising to continue the economic reforms.

The Cabinet’s 17-5 vote on withdrawal was the first of four expected to ratify the government’s decision. Each vote pertains to a separate group of settlements. All 21 communities in Gaza are to be abandoned, along with four in the West Bank.

The series of last-minute Cabinet votes was part of a 2004 compromise with Netanyahu and other Likud ministers that allowed the government to approve the withdrawal in principle. On Sunday, the Cabinet in essence confirmed that there were no fresh circumstances to warrant scuttling the pullout.

Four other Likud ministers joined Netanyahu in voting against dismantling the three settlements.

The decision allows the Israeli army and police to begin evacuating the isolated settlements of Netzarim, located alone in central Gaza, and Kfar Darom and Morag, which sit apart in the strip’s southern half. Residents of the three are viewed as the most likely groups to resist.

The Cabinet action, however, does not mean that the trio of settlements will be the first emptied. The Cabinet is expected to vote on 15 other Gaza settlements Sunday, before the pullout begins. So the government probably will approve withdrawal from most Gaza settlements by the deadline.

So far, officials have not disclosed the sequence of the planned evacuations.

Sharon has argued that maintaining a presence among Gaza’s 1.3 million Palestinians is not worth the expense. The move will reduce friction with the Palestinians, he says, by turning over to them a region that Israel is unlikely to retain under a future peace agreement.

Palestinian officials fear that in withdrawing from Gaza on its own, Israel intends to solidify and expand its grip on settlement areas in the West Bank, setting back the chances for a permanent accord.

As the pullout date nears, Israeli leaders say they expect settler opposition to wane.

Late last week, the head of the disengagement agency, Yonatan Bassi, said 1,000 of the estimated 1,700 families scheduled to be moved had applied for compensation. In comments posted on the website of the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, Bassi predicted that as many as 80% of the families would agree to leave by the time of the pullout.

Withdrawal opponents plan more demonstrations this week in a last-ditch bid to block the evacuation.

Tensions were inflamed further by Thursday’s shooting rampage by a Jewish army deserter who killed four Israeli Arabs in northern Israel.

The 19-year-old gunman, Eden Natan-Zada, had abandoned his army unit over his refusal to evict settlers and was living in Tapuah, a West Bank settlement known as a far-right bastion. He was killed by a mob after the shootings in the town of Shfaram.

Natan-Zada was buried Sunday in a civilian graveyard in Rishon Le Zion, the town near Tel Aviv where he grew up, after the army refused him a place in the military cemetery.

*

Times staff writer Shlomi Simhi in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.