JERUSALEM, March 28: Israel’s parliament on Monday rejected a referendum bill on the planned Gaza Strip evacuation, removing the last obstacle to the pullout and dealing a severe blow to those staunchly opposed to withdrawal. The bill was thrown out by a landslide majority of 72 MPs to 39 in favour. Out of the 114 MPs present in the Knesset, there were three abstentions.

After Prime Minister Ariel Sharon nailed enough support to force his 2005 budget through parliament by a cut off date on Thursday, opponents had seized on a referendum as the last political chance to stall his disengagement plan.

A plebiscite would have delayed the evacuation of some 8,000 settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip — already sanctioned by parliament and the cabinet, but the effort proved futile.

Nonetheless, the political manouevring over the referendum saw tension soar within Mr Sharon’s right-wing Likud party, a third of which oppose the Gaza withdrawal, in a standoff that has dogged the premier for months.

Likud rebels, including those as high-profile as Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and settler lobby groups had desperately tried to persuade those MPs, who are sitting on the fence, to back the bill to hold a referendum.

Those involved were primarily the 11 deputies from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, all of whom voted against the bill.

The party opposes the pullout but its spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef refused to waver in his anti-referenda principles.

Mr Sharon, a masterful political survivor, has already crushed the last serious political threat to his planned evacuation by securing enough support to get the 2005 state budget through parliament.

Debate on the budget bill — criticized by the left for its welfare cuts and once seen by the right-wing as key to halting the evacuation — was to begin after the referendum vote.

Its passage at second and third votes are now seen as a formality. If the budget were not adopted by end-March, the government would fall, which would force an early election and put the Gaza evacuation in jeopardy.

Provided all goes according to plan, Mr Sharon will presents the details of his pullout strategy to US President George W. Bush at the president’s Texas ranch on April 11.

He should then return to Israel bolstered by US support before he goes ahead from July 20 with the evacuation of the Gaza Strip Jewish settlements and Israeli troops, and of four isolated outposts in the northern West Bank.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat welcomed the disengagement plan as “a glimmer of hope” and called for an immediate resumption of political talks.

“We hope this marks the beginning of a process that leads to further withdrawals from occupied Palestinian territory,” he said in a prepared speech distributed at a “Peace in Palestine” conference in Malaysia.—AFP