Sharon pullout plan approved

By Seattle Times news services

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JERUSALEM — Jewish settlers said yesterday they are still confident they can block an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, even as legislators in the nearby Knesset building approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pullout plan, which would uproot 8,800 settlers from their homes in Gaza and four West Bank settlements.

Hundreds of settler families demonstrated in a sun-drenched park across from Israel's parliament, promising to fight Sharon's plan, which passed 67-45 after two days of rancorous debate.

The vote represents a key step forward for the pullout, which would be the first time Israel has acted on its own to vacate settlements in territory occupied since the 1967 Middle East War. The withdrawal, scheduled to take place next year, must pass further government votes.

The measure passed with the help of the dovish Labor Party and leftist legislators.

Sharon's conservative Likud Party remained deeply divided, with nearly half of the 40-member faction voting against the party leader.

"This is a big victory for Sharon," declared Justice Minister Tommy Lapid, a member of the centrist Shinui Party that is Sharon's largest coalition partner.

Once the settlers' champion, Sharon has said that the unilateral pullback, which polls show enjoys the support of most Israelis, would reduce friction with the Palestinians and free the military from having to guard an area Israel is unlikely to keep in any future peace agreement. Foes say evacuating amounts to the forcible expulsion of Jews and rewards terrorism.

"I came here to tell the people of Israel that this is our land and my home," said David Pinipnta, 31, of the Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim, speaking before the vote. "No power on earth can move me from it."

"I think the settlers' optimism is very realistic," said Menachem Friedman, an expert in the settler movement from Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University. "The settlers have a very organized group while Sharon doesn't."

Clad in bright orange T-shirts emblazoned with the motto of the Gaza settlers — "We have love and love will triumph" — the settlers sang, clapped, danced and prayed as religious-style rock singers and revered rabbis primed them with words of encouragement. Schools in Jewish settlements through Gaza and the West Bank were closed yesterday to allow children to attend the protest. At times, the gathering resembled a large family outing.
 
The Gaza settlements are home to about 8,000 Jewish residents, while the affected West Bank communities hold several hundred more. The plan calls for evacuating all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four others in the northern West Bank by the end of next year.

The settlers say it will never happen. "I think that large numbers of people will come to resist," said Gaza settler Micki Rosenstein, 48, recalling that 70,000 Israelis traveled to Gaza on Israeli Independence Day in May.

On Monday, the Knesset is expected to take up legislation dealing with compensating settlers who are to be removed from their homes, many of which were initially built with government support. Later next week, Sharon's fragile coalition enters a make-or-break phase when legislators begin considering the proposed 2005 budget, which will include money for the withdrawals.

Moreover, the Cabinet must separately approve the actual evacuation in stages before any settlements can be uprooted.

Although yesterday's vote was not the final word on the withdrawal, it came draped in significance. "Making history," declared the main headline on the front page of the daily Maariv newspaper. An editorial in Haaretz, voicing support for the pullout, called it "nothing less than a historic moment in the Israelis' battle for their home."

The only time Israel has uprooted Jewish settlements was when it handed the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt under the 1979 Camp David peace agreement. Adding to the air of history, the Knesset vote came as Israel commemorated the anniversary, according to the Jewish calendar, of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin was gunned down by a right-wing law student who opposed an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Reuters reports.