Sharon's party bars bid for coalition on Gaza plan

10.30am

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party voted on Wednesday to bar him from forming a coalition with the Labour opposition, an embarrassing blow that complicates his plan to withdraw from occupied Gaza.

But the motion sponsored by hardliners in the right-wing Likud was not binding and Sharon's aides had said he would press on with his blueprint for "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians whatever the outcome of the snap party convention.

A tally of ballots announced by a Likud official showed that about 58 per cent of party Central Committee members rejected Sharon's attempt to bring dovish Labour into his government.

Polls show most Israelis on Sharon's side, regarding Gaza as a bloody liability. But he needs Labour by his side to ensure a coalition majority for evacuating 8000 Jewish settlers from the small Mediterranean territory in 2005.

Likud rebels contend that ceding land Israel taken in the 1967 Middle East war would "reward Palestinian terror".

Sharon, in brushing off the Likud Central Committee vote, could cause a schism in Israel's largest party and risk early elections, commentators say.

In a speech before the secret ballot, Sharon said he was acting for the good of Israel and not his political survival.

"There are times in the life of a nation when it must make difficult decisions. The state of Israel has reached that moment," Sharon said, raising his voice to be heard over a crowd of hardline hecklers chanting, "Yes to Likud, no to Labour".

"This is the voice of someone who knows how to lead a nation above any interest, whether partisan or personal," he said.

Members of Likud's 3000-strong Central Committee also voted on a separate motion from Sharon asking for permission to negotiate with unnamed parties on expanding his coalition.

But Sharon's loss to the rebels could scramble his efforts to forge a broad coalition capable of removing settlers and the soldiers deployed to protect them from a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Sharon ignored a Likud referendum vote in May against his decision to dismantle all 21 Jewish enclaves in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank -- a shock reversal from decades as the godfather of settlement expansion.

Sharon persuaded his coalition cabinet in June to approve his plan but only "in principle" and only after some mutinous far-right partners defected or were sacked.

Their exit cost Sharon his parliamentary majority, driving him into talks with Labour to ensure victory in future votes on putting the phases of withdrawal into motion.

Some analysts say Sharon hopes anti-withdrawal activists will stop short of thrusting him into early elections over the Gaza plan for fear of losing their assembly seats.

In an apparent gesture to Likud hardliners, Sharon earlier in the week approved 1000 more homes in larger West Bank settlements he says Israel will never yield under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Washington, Israel's key ally and the main Middle East peace mediator, wants a freeze on such building but reserved judgment on Sharon's move in the belief he might only be manoeuvring for short-term political reasons and not follow through.

The unilateral "Disengagement Plan" entails removing 8000 Jewish settlers from Gaza where they live in fortified enclaves among 1.3 million Palestinians.

Four of the 120 West Bank settlements would also go by next year. But Sharon intends never to give up an arc of larger enclaves containing most of the 240,000 settler population.

That has raised Palestinian fears that "disengagement" is no more than a bid to circumvent a US-backed peace plan promising them a viable state in the West Bank and Gaza.

The plan, known as the "road map", has been sidelined for more than a year by persistent violence on both sides.

- REUTERS