JERUSALEM, Aug 19 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, having staked his whole reputation on the success off his Gaza pullout plan, is set to brush aside a stunning reverse at the hands of his Likud party and pursue his plan to bring the opposition Labour faction into government, analysts said Thursday.
A source close to Sharon said the premier planned to plough ahead with his so-called disengagement plan despite his party convention endorsing a motion against Labour's joining a new coaltion.
But despite the defeat, Sharon, nicknamed the bulldozer, appears to have little option but to bring in Labour unless he wants to abandon the project to pull troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel since 1967.
And observers said that given the choice between alienating Likud and the electorate, who polls show overwhelmingly support an exit from Gaza, Sharon is quite prepared to fall out with his party.
"Worse than clashing with his party is clashing with his voters. The voters are with him," said Dan Schueftan, an analyst at Israel's Haifa University.
"He knows that he is finished if he does not pursue it (the disengagement)," he added.
Sharon showed his willingness to defy the will of his party in May when the disengagement plan was roundly rejected in a referundum of Likud members.
His opponents hoped that defeat would prompt him to simply shelve the project but instead Sharon decided to push his proposals to a cabinet vote, ensuring victory when he sacked two ministers from the ultra right-wing National Union.
The leader of the National Religious Party, another junior coalition partner, then quit the government in disgust.
Israeli analyst Eitan Gilboa said that Sharon was likely to shrug off Wednesday's defeat by arguing that it did not represent the real will of the party.
"He is going to say first it's only advisory and second only 40 percent of people voted and none of the votes really represents a majority," said Gilboa, a professor of politics at Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.
Sharon was long seen as the ultimate champion of the settlers' movement, and his 1998 call when in opposition to "seize the hills" of the Palestinian territories has remained a rallying cry for radical settlers.
But since unveiling his disengagement plan last December, he has consistently argued that it is better for Israel to leave parts of the West Bank and Gaza on its own terms rather than having a solution imposed on it.
Apart from a total withdrawal from Gaza by the end of next year, the plan also involves a pullout from four small settlements in the northern West Bank.
But it also envisages the de facto annexation of larger West Bank settlement blocs.
While avoiding any direct reference to disengagement in his speech to delegates in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, Sharon said Israel was facing a moment of truth.
"There are times in the life of a nation when it is forced to take hard and fateful decisions. The state of Israel has reached this point," he said.
According to Gilboa, the 76-year-old Sharon is determined to secure a favourable chapter in the history books -- even if the price is alienating his party.
"I think he is very determined to implement disengagement because of his understanding of Israel's standing in the Middle East and international system. He thinks its necessary to protect Israel's long-term interests," said Gilboa.
"He is putting his career on the line.... He is ready to sacrifice a lot. He could have postponed it, minimised it but he wants to go into hisotry as the person who understood the national needs of Israel at this time."