Quotes of the Day

The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, is not a place I visit too often. It is much more convenient — and effective — to meet with MKs (Members of the Knesset) in the "field" (demonstrations, tours, etc.), where all of their attention is given to the subject at hand, instead of to their next meetings or parliamentary commitments.

But this Monday, having already spent most of the day in Jerusalem and needing a lift back to Tel Aviv with a friend who works in the Knesset, I decided to drop in. The previous day, Sunday, Prime Minister Sharon tried to convince his government to approve a revised disengagement plan. This attempt, coming a month after Sharon's failure to convince Likud party members to support the plan, did not go well. The majority of the ministers, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, a former Likud Prime Minister and currently the Minister of Finance, opposed Sharon's revised plan, saying that Sharon should respect his party's decision.

On Monday, the Knesset had its own contentious discussion, which devolved into personal attack. MK Naomi Blumenthal, who had been deposed last year by Sharon from her post as a deputy minister when revelations about her involvement in a Likud primaries scandal were published, slammed Sharon: "You are an arrogant man, proud and supercilious. You are contemptuous". Even in the informal Israeli culture, these expressions are considered extremely acute, and when a lower-ranking Likud MK lashes out like that at the PM, it demonstrates how weak is Sharon's position and how fragile the coalition is.

But when I arrived in the Knesset in the late afternoon, the storm was already quieting and the MKs were busy measuring the damage. In the MKs Cafeteria, a popular meeting point, MKs were sitting together with the most prominent commentators of the Israeli press, briefing them, trying to set tomorrow's headlines to their satisfaction.

I asked the Likud MK Michael Ratzon, if he thinks that the severe attacks on Sharon mean that the coalition is crumbling. "Not yet", he replied, blaming Sharon for the effect: "If the disengagement process will go on without getting consent within the Likud, then it would hurt the coalition. However, I believe that by the end of the week a compromise would be achieved between Sharon and Netanyahu". But a compromise, I reminded Ratzon, would mean reducing the pullout plan to almost nothing. By that, I pressed, the government will lose the support of the Israeli public, of whom 70% — as all the polls show — support a Gaza Strip pullout.

"Those polls show that the majority of the public supports a disengagement under an agreement, not a unilateral pullout", he said. "I'm afraid that the Israeli media is so biased in the favor of Sharon's plan, that it is hiding this information from the public".

Would you support an agreement signed with Arafat, then? I wondered. It would mean, after all, giving up most of the settlements, an idea to which Ratzon is well known to object fiercely. But Ratzon is not new to politics and thus supplies a vague answer: "I conduct many talks with Palestinians, and I have realized that we can reach solutions without evacuating settlements blocs. Our aspiration should be to leave settlements blocs in Israeli hands".Meanwhile, the Gaza-based disengagement plan, as well as Sharon's government, seem to be in a bleak state.

On my way back to Tel Aviv, I felt that any passing moment without a sane agreement — an agreement that Ratzon might not be willing to sign as it will have to draw the line somewhere near the '67 borders, thus giving up settlements — costs too many lives in this region and escalating the situation, making any agreement less possible. Ratzon, Netanyahu and their fellow Likud MKs and ministers' blindness might be good for politicians who want to buy time, but it's destructive for a public that can't afford paying for it.

• MICHAL LEVERTOV
• Israel's parliament is split over Gaza withdrawal, says columnist Michal Levertov