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Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (archive)
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| By israelinsider staff September 13, 2004 |
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In a surprise announcement, Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday called for a "quick referendum" to decide the fate of the unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip and four northern West Bank settlements.
Netanyahu called on the Knesset to immediately draft legislation to permit such a plebiscite, saying the measure would prevent a major rift in the country. Speaking at a ceremony at the Treasury marking the coming Rosh Hashana holiday, he told ministry employees and journalists: "I am very concerned by what all of us are seeing and have experienced in recent weeks, the verbal blows and emotions ahead of the decisions over the disengagement."
Netanyahu said that holding a referendum would reduce tension and increase understanding among various sectors. "It will be very difficult to argue that such a decision, once accepted by a majority of the public, was illegitimate." He said that while "the supporters of disengagement appear to have a majority in the Knesset," that was insufficient. "They say that if there's a majority in the Knesset, why do we need a referendum? I think this view is very narrow, irresponsible, and unreasonable."
For the sake of "national unity," Netanyahu said, the process would need to be quick and be based on a simple proposition that asks the voter for an opinion on the Cabinet decision calling for disengagement in stages, which Netanyahu eventually supported. "I propose as a condition ... an expedited process for a national referendum that would include one question: 'Are you in favor or against the government decision regarding disengagement?"' he said.
Netanyahu would not discuss whether he would ask that the referendum pass with a special majority, in other words, more than 50%. In the Knesset, some votes of great national concern require a special majority, ensuring that a majority of Jewish Knesset Members support it so that the Arab vote does not tip the scales. The National Religious Party has said that a 60% majority in support of the disengagement plan should be required for its passage.
The call for a referendum puts Netanyahu in line with the "rebels" in the Likud party opposing the Prime Minister's policy. Minister without portfolio Uzi Landau, a leading opponent of Sharon's disengagement plan, said that while he generally opposes the use of plebiscites, "at this juncture - where a policy is being undertaken that needs a wide public consensus, and when it is being undertaken by non-democratic means -- I would agree to a referendum."
Sharon: I should have done it before, but not now
Prime Minister Sharon, routed 60 to 40% when he brought his "disengagement" proposal to a referendum among his Likud party members in the spring, told The Jerusalem Post that he was mistaken not to have pushed for a nationwide plebiscite previously, but could not go back to one now. "If you ask me what mistakes I have made, one was not going to a general referendum," Sharon said Tuesday. "It doesn't look like it is on the cards now. I don't know if it's still possible when we are in the midst of a disengagement process."
However, Sharon and his supporters were firmly opposed saying the idea for a referendum came too late, was impractical and divisive, and would be used by opponents of disengagement to drag out the process.
Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said it is too late for a referendum. "We are already in the midst of advanced planning stages [to remove all Israelis from Gaza and northern Samaria]," Olmert said. "A referendum is a tactic to stop the disengagement, Israel's commitments to the US and the timetable put forward by the prime minister. We need to start moving forward with the plan, and quickly. The wave of threats coming out of right-wing groups needs to be stopped."
However, Knesset Members from the opposition Labor party did not rule out support for a referendum. MK Opher Pines said he would not rule out a referendum on the disengagement plan as long as it were carried out quickly and not decided by a special majority.
Former MK and current leader of the leftist Yahad movement, Yossi Beilin, said a referendum is unnecessary. Since nobody asked the nation to go into Gaza, there is no need to ask for approval to exit Gaza, Army Radio quoted Beilin as saying.
Labor PMs agreed to referenda over peace deals
However, left-of-center Israeli Prime Ministers have in the past pledged to carry out referenda for fateful decisions involving territorial withdrawals. In an August 1994 interview on Israel Radio, Yitzhak Rabin said that he would call for a plebiscite if a deal over the Golan Heights was in the offing: "if we arrive at the possibility of signing a peace treaty between Syria and Israel which would require a significant withdrawal, that a decision on this would be made in a national referendum. In other words, the people will decide on what it is prepared to give up in order to reach peace. I do not see this as being subject only to a Knesset decision."
Former PM Ehud Barak also agreed to a plebiscite over a deal with Syria involving the Golan: ""It will have to be decided in a national referendum, and I'm fully confident that I will never sign an agreement that will not strengthen the security and the future of Israel. And if I will be ready to sign it, I'm confident there will be a landslide victory. It will be approved in even much wider kind of victory than I had when I was elected Prime Minister," he told ABC-TV's "This Week" in March 2000.
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