MIDDLE EAST Labor Party vows to back removal of settlements

The Israeli army said it had arrested a senior militant operative.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The opposition Labor Party said it would back Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to dismantle Jewish settlements in Gaza, assuring him of a parliamentary majority even if ultranationalists quit Sharon's coalition in protest.
Sharon shrugged off the growing threats Tuesday to his government, saying he is determined to go ahead with plans to remove 17 settlements in Gaza and three in the West Bank without waiting for a peace deal with the Palestinians. He said he would try to form a new governing coalition rather than back down.
The prime minister's surprise announcement Monday divided Israelis into two camps: those who believe Sharon, for decades the main architect of Jewish settlement expansion, is truly changing course; and those who suspect him of trying to deflect attention from a corruption probe against him.
Commentators said whatever Sharon's motives, his declaration has created irreversible facts, and no future prime minister could demand to hold on to parts of Gaza in a peace deal with the Palestinians. "The words that were uttered can never be taken back," commentator Dan Margalit wrote in the Maariv daily.
Backing in polls
Opinion polls suggested that Sharon has broad public support for dismantling most Gaza settlements, increasingly seen by many Israelis as a security burden. Israel controls one-third of the strip; 1.3 million Palestinians share the rest.
In his first public comment on the issue Tuesday, Sharon avoided mention of Gaza but said he was determined to press ahead with the removal of settlements.
"Not only is this difficult for the settlers, but also, it is more painful for myself than anyone else in Israel," Sharon said during a visit to the coastal city of Ashkelon. "But I've reached a decision and I am going to carry it out."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told Palestinian radio he wants to see "deeds, not words. We want to see them leaving the whole Gaza Strip, leaving Gaza as liberated Palestinian land and leaving us to concentrate on their withdrawal from the West Bank."
Militant's arrest
In the West Bank today, the army said it had arrested a senior operative in the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the village of Tubas. Palestinian sources identified the man as Jihad Sawafta, a militant who they said had escaped an Israeli assassination attempt in 2002.
Senior aides to Sharon and Qureia were scheduled to meet today in hopes of arranging a meeting between the two prime ministers, officials from the two sides confirmed. A summit would be a crucial step in reviving the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.
Sharon has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he plans to take unilateral steps in the West Bank and Gaza -- dismantling some settlements, redeploying troops and imposing a boundary -- if there is no progress on the road map in the coming months.
Corruption probe
Raanan Gissin, a Sharon adviser, denied allegations, including by settler leaders, that the prime minister dropped a political bombshell this week to divert attention from the corruption probe.
Sharon, who has denied wrongdoing, is to be questioned by police Thursday on suspicion he accepted bribes from an Israeli real estate developer.
Sharon's timing is not linked to the investigation, Gissin said. "It has to do with planning ahead; it's something that needs to be debated by the public. This move was also made to reach an understanding with the United States," he said.
Israel's new attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, conducted his first review of the Sharon case Tuesday, and Israel TV reported he was expected to decide in two or three months whether to indict the prime minister.
Labor Party leadership
The Labor Party, meanwhile, extended elder statesman Shimon Peres' term as temporary party leader until December 2005. A rival proposal to have Peres step down by June was narrowly defeated.
Peres in the past was a strong advocate of a Labor-Likud government, and he led the party into Sharon's first coalition in 2001. However, in recent months, Peres, 80, has harshly criticized Sharon's policies, suggesting he was not interested in a replay of a so-called "national unity government."
At a Labor Party convention, Peres said the party would support Sharon "as long as he continues on this road" of removing settlements, but stopped short of saying his party would join the government.
This means Sharon would be assured a majority in parliament for the removal of settlements, even if the pro-settler National Religious Party and the National Union quit the coalition. Sharon's coalition controls 68 seats in the 120-member parliament, and would otherwise lose its majority with the departure of the two factions.