MIDDLE EAST: A group of Jewish settlers yesterday began a 100-kilometre march from Gaza to Jerusalem, in pouring rain, to protest at Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to uproot most of the settlements in the Strip.
Carrying Israeli flags and banners, some 100 settlers set off on foot to the official Jerusalem residence of Mr Sharon, who earlier this month said he had given orders to draw up a plan for the dismantling of 17 of the 21 settlements in Gaza.
"Settlement evacuation equals victory for terrorism," read one placard. "We will not give up our home," read another.
The Gaza evacuation is part of Mr Sharon's "disengagement" plan, which includes a series of unilateral measures that would see Israel separating from the Palestinians.
Some 7,500 Jewish settlers live in Gaza, which is home to over one million Palestinians.
One of the marchers, Mr Lior Kalfa, said Mr Sharon had "lost his way" but that he believed "the people are with us."
That's not what the polls say. A clear majority of Israelis, surveys indicate, are in favour of leaving Gaza and uprooting the highly fortified settlements there.
Two ultra-nationalist parties, however, have threatened to bolt Mr Sharon's coalition if he brings his plan to the government for approval.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Ahmed Korei on Saturday called on the US not to back the Israeli leader's Gaza plan.
The Palestinians fear Mr Sharon wants to win American support for the removal of settlements in the Strip in exchange for the expansion of large settlement blocs in the West Bank.
A lawmaker for the left-wing Meretz party, meanwhile, is demanding that Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz not appoint Air Force chief Dan Halutz as the army's deputy chief of staff.
Mr Ran Cohen recently sent a letter to Mr Mofaz asserting there was a moral flaw in Mr Halutz's makeup as a commander and human being.
Mr Cohen was referring to the assassination of Salah Shehada, the head of the Hamas military wing, in 2002 in the Gaza Strip, in which a one-tonne bomb was dropped on a densely-populated area.
The result: Mr Shehada was killed in the strike, but so were 14 others, many of them civilians. Asked later about the strike in an interview, Mr Halutz replied that he slept well at night.
"Announcing the appointment at a time during which Israel stands before the International Court of Justice at The Hague [over the West Bank separation barrier] is an amazing display of the lack of vision by the security establishment, or worse, the lack of understanding of the new international reality," Mr Cohen wrote.