Can Ariel Sharon pull out of Gaza without party support?

Producer: Yvonne Gomez
First broadcast: 3 May 04, Radio Singapore International

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has failed to get the support of the ruling Likud party for withdrawing from the Gaza strip.

Now that his "disengagement" plan has been rejected by his own political party, what will the consequences be for Sharon?

A question Yvonne Gomez posed to Dr Michael McKinley from the Australian National University in Canberra.

MM: It s really up to him. He s got option each way. Even though this is not to his liking, he says he will respect the results. The problem is that he can also refer to the fact that the majority of people polled in Israel favour a withdrawal from Gaza. So he can play the statesman and say he won t rely solely on party specific sentiment. The difficulty will be that, if he carries on like that, Likud might actually get rid of him and he could be under quite a lot of pressure in his own party because, clearly, his war against the Palestinians hasn t been working, and Israel is no more secure now than when he came into office.

YG: You ve mentioned that he said he will respect the referendum result, but he s also said that he plans to go ahead whatever the outcome of the vote. What is the possibility of this happening? Can he actually go ahead despite a lack of support from his own party?

MM: Yes he can. The way he would do it is by being particularly though to the West Bank and there s a great deal more for him to gain that way, certainly in terms of numbers, with well over 200,000 Israeli settlers living on the West Bank, compared to only about 7500 living in Gaza. So he could actually try a trade-off there. Realistically, to keep people in Gaza, is to invite a huge amount of military activity in the region as well, for a relatively small number of people. He might see that he can bargain with people, but it would require some rather adept politicking, which is not something he s shown himself to be skilled at, I have to say.

YG: The Bush administration has thrown its full support behind this disengagement plan. Will this give Sharon the clout that he needs to go ahead?

MM: Well, the Bush administration has said that they would like him to get out of Gaza but they don t mind him staying on the West Bank. Yes, he gets support but he uses it in a particular way as most Israeli governments do. When the United States supports them, it gives them extra clout. When the United States disagrees with them, they don t actually change their behaviour. And the United States government has been particularly critical this policy of selective assassination, from time to time, not in a blanket way, but from time to time. It seems to have made no difference to Sharon s orders. So the United States is there, effectively, and particularly in this election year, as someone who will, in the end, provide support for Sharon.

Despite living in daily fear for their lives, the 8000-odd Jewish settlers in the Gaza strip are still against moving out. Reports have shown that disengagement from would be seen by some Israelis as a humiliating retreat. Why do you think they re still reluctant to move out of the Gaza strip?

MM: Sharon s original policies, and I don t see that he s changed from them, was that he was really in favour of a form of ethnic cleansing of Greater Israel, and that would include Gaza and the West Bank. But he s got a problem there because that would invite even more violence if he tried to do that completely and openly. So I suspect that he s left with an undeclared policy objective for the last few years which he believes in, in the face of a huge amount of resistance, and its not going to change.

YG: Ethinic cleansing is quite a dangerous term to use, especially in the aftermath of Bosnia and Kosovo, so why do you think the Americans would support something like this?

MM: The Americans, in an election year especially, and most of the time in normal years as well, have it within themselves to bring more pressure to bear on the Israeli government, than any other government in the world. The problem is that there is a domestic agenda that has to be served by any presidential hopeful in the United States as well. And George W. Bush knows full well that he needs the support of the American Jewish vote. So he is unlikely to bring pressure to bear on Israel, despite the fact that what we see on a very regular basis, is a policy of selective assassination, a large number of non-combatants killed. We also see the government of Israel not doing a great deal about discouraging and dismantling the illegal settlements that have been set up. And we don t even see Israel abiding by UN resolutions which go back decades.