Sharon's leadership in crisis as Likud rejects settler plan

1.00pm - By ERIC SILVER in Jerusalem

Ariel Sharon's political obituary was being written yesterday as opponents in Labour and his own Likud party turned their backs on the embattled Prime Minister, putting his plan for a staged withdrawal of settlers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in jeopardy.

"The leader has no party," sneered one popular daily, but Mr Sharon, buoyed by a Supreme Court decision not to prosecute over corruption allegations which had been hanging over him and his son, vowed to fight on with his disengagement plans and promised to assemble the "broad and stable" government he needs in order to succeed.

It has been a traumatic week for the "bulldozer" of Israeli politics.

The Likud central committee voted overwhelmingly by 843-612 late on Wednesday night against co-opting the Labour opposition into the coalition to allow him to push through his withdrawal blueprint against the will of many Likud representatives.

By a smaller margin of only five votes, delegates also rejected a request by Mr Sharon to allow him to negotiate with "any Zionist party".

The triumphant rebels, led from within the cabinet by Uzi Landau, a minister without portfolio, were convinced they had sunk the disengagement plans. But the Prime Minister's spokesman, Ra'anan Gissin, said Mr Sharon would not change his political initiative with regard to disengagement.

"This process cannot be stopped. If it is not done by Sharon, it will be done by whoever succeeds him."

Negotiations with Labour and the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party would probably be put on hold, he added, but they would not be terminated.

"Sharon has a political problem," he insisted.

"He will deal with it. He will have to find ways to bring the Likud activists into the loop, but he is not going to let them dictate. The party has to reach an accommodation. No one wants elections; no one wants a split."

Labour may not, however, be prepared to wait. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of its negotiating team, said: "We cannot sit in a government with a Prime Minister who is a lame duck. We must reach an understanding with the Likud about early elections."

Nehama Duek reported in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot on a Likud that was "divided, quarrelling, full of hatred, replete with gaps, which as of now appear to be unbridgeable".

The Likud, on this scenario, would split. The "greater Israel" rebels would combine with smaller ultra-nationalist parties on the far right. The more flexible Likud members - including the majority of the party's MPs, who are believed to have voted for Mr Sharon on Wednesday - would link up with Labour and the centrist, anti-clerical Shinui to carry through the Gaza evacuation.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ordered the government to produce within 30 days a statement specifying the potential ramifications of the International Court of Justice's condemnation in July of the West Bank separation barrier as a violation of international law.

It was a partial victory for anti-fence campaigners. The judges allowed building work to continue, but on condition that the government undertook to remove the fence and compensate the villagers if the Israeli court eventually ruled in their favour.

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