JERUSALEM, Aug 17 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan could be severely jolted but is unlikely to be derailed in a knife-edge vote at his right-wing Likud party's convention, analysts said Tuesday.
While Wednesday's meeting of some 3,000 senior party members has ostensibly been convened to vote on whether to allow the moderate Labour party into a new broad-based coalition, hardliners are making no secret their real intention is to smother the Gaza pullout before it can be approved by parliament.
Sharon needs to expand his coalition in order to give him the parliamentary support for his so-called disengagement plan. He lost his majority in June when tradional right-wing allies, including three ultra-nationalist cabinet ministers, baulked at the prospect of a withdrawal from any part of biblical Israel.
The public face of the "no" campaign is Minister Without Portfolio Uzi Landau, but more senior cabinet members such as Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom -- set to lose his job in a new coalition -- and the ambitious Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have much to gain from a reverse for the premier.
The disengagement plan has already been rejected in a referendum among all Likud cardholders back in May and a decision to hold Monday's vote in a secret ballot is also likely to embolden the "rebels".
Sharon has not exactly endeared himself to the Likud convention by not only brushing aside the outcome of May's referendum and pledging that he will not feel bound by the outcome of Wednesday's vote.
The mixture of nationalism, ambition and pique could prove a potent mix.
"This coalition of interests risks tilting the balance away from Mr Sharon at the convention which is tradionally more to the right than the party leadership," convention delegate Ariel Picard told AFP.
Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg, who said the vote "could go either way", warned that the secret ballot ruling was likely to encourage rebellion among Likud members who are reluctant to abandon the notion of Greater Israel.
But Steinberg, of Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University, said that in the event of defeat, Sharon was likely to continue his negotiations with Labour and other smaller parties in the knowledge that public opinion is broadly behind him.
"Sharon is not vulnerable in a national sense, only within his party," he said.
Another Likud delegate, Yelena Cohen, conceded Sharon could merely ignore a defeat but added that he would then be sorely testing the loyalty of his Likud MPs who would be effectively asked to support a policy in direct contravention of the official party line.
"The deputies would be in a very delicate situation as they do not want to find themselves in conflict with the authority which chooses the candidates at each election," she said.
According to Yoel Marcus, a columnist for the Haaretz daily, Sharon is likely to pay lip service to any defeat but then continue on his chosen path.
"It is very possible that tomorrow they will skewer him a little, and make him walk barefoot on burning coals.
"But he has all the public backing he needs to look them in the eye, and say, 'I heard you,' and then proceed in precisely the opposite direction from the one they expect from him."