TEL AVIV, March 9: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon struggled on Tuesday to keep a lid on increasingly vocal dissent in the military's top ranks over his evolving plan to uproot Gaza settlements, political sources said.
Ariel Sharon planned to summon the army chief, Lt Gen Moshe Yaalon, in coming days to explain his reported criticism of the prime minister's unilateral "disengagement" strategy towards the Palestinians, the sources said.
The rare public rift signalled growing divisions at the top over Mr Sharon's plan to remove Jewish settlements and possibly withdraw troops from the Gaza Strip if the peace roadmap remains stalled.
The right-wing leader was expected to lobby for diplomatic support for his controversial initiative in talks this week with visiting US envoys and at a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah that Mr Sharon said would likely be held in a few days.
An official in King Abdullah's office said he was unaware any meeting had been scheduled. Palestinians fear that by pursuing disengagement, Israel is seeking to trade Gaza for permanent control over large parts of the West Bank with its larger settlements, effectively depriving them of land they want for their own state.
Mr Sharon's office denied a television report he was "enraged" at Gen Yaalon and would reprimand him for airing disagreement over the Gaza plan. But a source close to Mr Sharon said he wanted to put a stop to the military's public expressions of dissent. "Sharon thinks Israel has to stop speaking with so many voices," the source said.
MORE ATTACKS FEARED: Gen Yaalon, who has been at odds with Mr Sharon before, was quoted in news reports as predicting a unilateral withdrawal would fuel more Palestinian militant attacks.
"It will take more than a division (of soldiers) to repair the damage created by withdrawing from one settlement under fire," Israeli newspapers quoted him as saying.
Israeli sources said senior commanders feared that a Gaza pullout with nothing in return would enable militants to claim victory and encourage them to keep fighting.
The commander of Hamas's armed wing, Mohammad Deif, said on Tuesday an evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza would signal a victory for Palestinian militancy.
"The criminal Sharon was elected to smash our resistance in 100 days. But now the man who once said Netzarim (isolated settlement in Gaza) was just like Tel Aviv is planning to withdraw from Gaza without something in return," he said.
"This is a great prophesy of victory," Mohammad Deif said in a rare voice interview broadcast by Hamas's military wing, the Izz el Deen al Qassam Brigades, on its Web page.
Seeking to defuse the row, the Israeli army chief telephoned Mr Sharon on Monday, political sources said. "The prime minister knows my opinion. They are voiced in closed meetings...and that is what I have done regarding the disengagement plan," Gen Yaalon told Israel Radio. "I heard about this through the media and I know of no crisis."
Despite that, Mr Sharon fears the army's objections will be used by his pro-settler coalition partners to undermine his plan as he prepares to present it to US President George Bush later this month or early next month, a political source said. Settlers accuse Mr Sharon, once considered the godfather of the settlement movement, of betraying their cause. -Reuters
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