Israel press notes Sharon triumph

Israeli papers see victories for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Tuesday's Knesset votes to pass the budget and reject pro-settler calls for a referendum on the withdrawal from Gaza.

Some express concern that the pro-settler movement will take to the streets - and that Mr Sharon's victories come at the price of circumventing Israel's democratic institutions by brinkmanship.

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This week Sharon won two battles. The Knesset majority opposed the referendum and approved the budget. But it is doubtful that calm will return to the Likud ranks.

The real test will come during the disengagement, and the ultimate question is what tomorrow holds.

In two weeks' time the prime minister leaves for the US for a meeting with President Bush. If he gets approval to keep the major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria in the hands of Israel, it is possible that calm will prevail in the Likud and Sharon's standing will remain strong.

If not, unrest will grow and it is doubtful that Sharon, for all his popularity, will put down the rebellion.

Yosef Harif in Ma'ariv

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Sharon's bulldozer has not yet moved on the Gush Katif settlement blocs, but its tracks have already moved on the Knesset and run over all the parties. Sharon won in the votes on the referendum and budget, but the Knesset lost...

Amid the silent ruins that once were Israel's lively politics the prime minister can now sit confidently and look around him with satisfaction.

Whoever thinks that the main point is to get the disengagement implemented is wrong. Whoever does not see that the Bulldozer [Sharon's nickname] is destroying what we had here on his way to Gush Katif is mistaken.

Imonah Elon in Yediot Aharonot

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The leaders of the opposition to the Gush Katif and northern Samaria withdrawal plan rushed after the referendum vote on Monday night to declare that they had moved their campaign to the streets.

They make no secret of their intention to defeat the government and Knesset by force, and to do so by clashing with the army and police and disrupting life in the country.

This challenge to the authority of the state and to lawful decisions of the legitimate authorities is based on a claim to the right to protest and freedom of speech presented as a legitimate step that a democratic society must tolerate.

In response to that it must be said that the disengagement approval process was lengthy and had plenty of chances for the opponents of the plan to express their position and try to tilt things their way.

Uzi Benziman in Ha'aretz

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While Monday's Knesset vote rejecting the referendum bill may have been an important victory for the prime minister, it was in fact a dreadful blow to the cause of Israel's national unity...

After months of rancour and debate, after all the heated arguments on television and in the media, Israeli society finds itself on the cusp of an excruciatingly painful and wrenching act: the expulsion of thousands of innocent civilians from their homes.

This isn't just another political issue, such as privatisation of state firms, university tuition-fee hikes or public-sector fiscal responsibility.

It goes to the very core of Israel's being, affecting its identity as a Jewish and Zionist state. And that is why, problematic and imperfect as referendums might be, the prime minister's opposition to holding one is so unfortunate.

It would have been costly and no doubt inconvenient, but there is no question that a national referendum would have served to calm the agitation and still the troubled waters rising all around us.

Michael Freund in The Jerusalem Post

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