Parliament's finance committee voted 10-9 in favor of the
2005 budget, sending the package to the full legislature where
Sharon faces a tough battle for final approval next week
against ultranationalists opposed to ceding an inch of occupied
land.
In another sign of rightist opposition, a second Knesset
panel decided to let parliament rule on whether to hold a
referendum on a Gaza pullout. Sharon rejects the idea as a
delaying tactic, and lawmakers are expected to vote it down.
Under law, if the 264.5 billion shekel ($62 billion) budget
is not passed by March 31, a general election must be held in
late June, a month before the Gaza withdrawal is due to begin.
An early national ballot could put Sharon's "Disengagement
Plan" on hold -- or possibly lead to it being shelved
altogether -- while complicating any new peace moves with the
Palestinians.
Committee approval of the budget followed fierce infighting
in Sharon's right-wing Likud party, which is split over his
plan to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of
120 in the West Bank. Both territories were captured in the
1967 war.
The vote marked the crossing of another major hurdle for
Sharon, once considered the godfather of the settlers' cause
but now reviled by them as a traitor.
But with rebellious Likud lawmakers vowing to vote against
the budget, he is not guaranteed a majority when it comes
before parliament next Tuesday.
As Sharon scrambles for legislative support from opposition
parties, he is counting on broad public backing for his Gaza
plan as well as Israeli distaste for the idea of holding a
third national election in four years.
"I don't foresee elections because this budget will pass,"
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (news - web sites) told Israel Radio.
LIKUD COMPROMISE
Likud rebels on the finance committee had vowed to block
the budget and it appeared Sharon would have had no choice but
to boot them off the panel. But that could have torn Likud
apart.
Under an uneasy compromise, Likud rebels agreed to back the
budget in the finance committee in return for support from
pro-Sharon Likud legislators in the law committee for a
proposal to hold a referendum on the Gaza plan.
Sharon has repeatedly dismissed the referendum proposal as
a ploy by pullout opponents to obstruct the process.
The Knesset's law committee approved the referendum bill
9-8 on Wednesday, sending it to parliament for debate on
Monday.
But analysts said it had almost no chance of passing the
legislature, which has already endorsed Sharon's Gaza
blueprint.
Sharon's coalition holds 67 of 120 seats in the Knesset but
his margin has been jeopardized by the threat of about a dozen
Likud deputies to reject the budget in protest at the Gaza
plan.
A Gaza pullout would mark Israel's first removal of
settlements from land the Palestinians want for their own
state.
Still, many Palestinians remain wary, seeing it as an
attempt to trade impoverished Gaza where 8,500 settlers live in
fortified enclaves for large swathes of the West Bank where the
vast majority of Israel's 240,000 settlers live.
That skepticism has been tempered by growing peace hopes on
both sides since President Mahmoud Abbas was elected in January
to succeed the late Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) and violence has dropped off.
Signaling optimism further afield, Arab rulers on Wednesday
relaunched a 2002 peace initiative which offers Israel normal
relations in exchange for its withdrawal to the 1967 borders --
a precondition which Israel has repeatedly rejected.
"If the Arab League were to call on Arab states to conduct
a dialogue with Israel, that would indeed be a positive step,
but unfortunately this did not happen," said Israeli Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mark Regev in response to the resolution.
(Additional reporting by Megan Goldin in Jerusalem)
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