JERUSALEM — Israel's Cabinet on Sunday soundly defeated an attempt to delay the planned Gaza Strip withdrawal by three months.
The 18-3 decision was the first of two planned votes this week on proposals to postpone the pullout, scheduled to start next month. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is expected Wednesday to defeat a separate measure seeking a delay.
The proposals stoked fresh tensions between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his main political foe, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who joined two other right-wing ministers Sunday in calling for the delay.
Netanyahu, under pressure from rightist supporters to resist the withdrawal, has indicated that he would sit out the Knesset vote rather than back the current timetable -- a move that Sharon aides said could lead to his dismissal from the Cabinet.
Israeli newspapers quoted unidentified representatives of Sharon as saying Netanyahu was legally obliged to support the government's plan or forfeit his position as a minister. Netanyahu aides insisted he was allowed to abstain from voting, and said Sharon had done so as a minister in a Netanyahu-led government during the 1990s.
The odds of a showdown were waning by the time the Cabinet voted, with Sharon aides appearing to back away from threats that Netanyahu would be sacked.
Netanyahu has voted in favor of the withdrawal when it has come up in the Knesset. But he also has been critical of the plan and maneuvered at times as if he were intent on derailing the pullout, apparently to bolster his right-wing following for a future battle with Sharon for leadership of their conservative Likud Party.
Sharon has made no secret of his irritation but kept Netanyahu in the government and endorsed his budgetary policies.
Israel plans to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four tiny communities in the northern West Bank beginning about Aug. 15. The move defeated Sunday, sponsored by Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, would have delayed that until November.
Under last year's government decision clearing the way for the withdrawal, the Cabinet still must approve each phase.
Sharon vows that the pullout will take place on schedule, despite opposition that has grown increasingly worrisome to authorities. Ministers were fitted for bulletproof vests before Sunday's Cabinet meeting, amid fears of possible extremist Jewish violence aimed at stopping the pullout.
