Cracks Widen in Israel Over Gaza Pullout Amid Hamas Specter

JERUSALEM, 11 May 2005 — Cracks widened in the Israeli government yesterday over the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s camp snubbed calls to freeze the pullout should Hamas triumph in Palestinian polls.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom’s appeals for the plan to be rethought should the Islamist movement win parliamentary elections in July flew in the face of statements from Sharon loyalists and Cabinet ministers.

“We should not accept a process if it leads to suicide,” Shalom said. “It would be totally illogical to go on with the withdrawal plan as if nothing had happened.”

The Palestinian Authority accused the foreign minister of looking for an excuse to scupper the Gaza pullout and Hamas slammed him for meddling. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and a Sharon aide said there was no question of reneging on the so-called disengagement project, which will see Israel withdraw troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in August. “The pullout will not be canceled. It is a difficult process but essential for our future,” said Mofaz.

Interior Minister Ophir Pines, from the center-left Labour Party which joined the coalition government primarily to shore up the pullout, told public radio that Shalom’s remarks were in fact liable to strengthen Hamas. “We must be very careful. Abu Mazen’s Fatah is weakening considerably as Hamas strengthens,” he said, referring to the ruling party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“This plan will be carried out whatever the results of the Palestinian elections,” an aide to Sharon told AFP. Sharon has publicly refused to rethink the pullout should Hamas romp home to victory in the July 17 parliamentary elections, after its recent gains in local elections across the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank.

“Disengagement is a unilateral measure and it will be executed irrespective of developments in the Palestinian Authority,” Sharon was quoted as saying by the Yediot Ahronot newspaper. Israel’s operation to pull troops and all 8,000 Jewish settlers out of the Palestinian territory has been postponed until mid-August.

Some commentators have suggested that the emerging rift between Sharon and Shalom - both stalwarts in the right-wing Likud that dominates the ruling coalition - stem from ambitions for the party’s imminent leadership race. Sharon intends to stand in Israel’s next general elections, while Shalom may seek to make political capital out of the pullout within Likud - which has rocked from crisis to crisis over the disengagement.

In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, Parliament Speaker Reuven Rivlin spoke of his own painful falling-out with Sharon, once one of his closest friends and allies within Likud, over the pullout. “How can you delegitimize the wonderful settlers who lived beside him and considered him their leader, guide and hero for many years?” he said.

As Shalom said no country on earth would allow “an armed group threatening neighboring states” to contest elections, armed Israeli police closed two offices responsible for registering voters in east Jerusalem, Palestinian officials said. Israel bans all official Palestinian activity in the annexed city, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised future state.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei flatly rejected Shalom’s interference in internal affairs. “If it signals anything, it signals Israel is not serious about withdrawing from Gaza or even returning to the negotiating table,” he told reporters. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Israeli pullout was “not a present”. “If the occupation does not leave, our people will continue the resistance which has forced the occupation forces to consider a departure,” he told AFP.