JERUSALEM - Israeli cabinet minister Nathan Sharansky, one of US President George W. Bush's intellectual guiding lights, resigned Monday in protest at plans to pull Jewish settlers out of the occupied Gaza Strip.
Sharansky, who became the sixth minister to either quit or be sacked in less than a year over opposition to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, warned it would strengthen Palestinian militancy and divide Israeli society.
"In my view, the disengagement plan is a tragic mistake that will exacerbate the conflict with the Palestinians, increase terrorism and dim the prospects of forging a genuine peace," he said in a resignation letter to Sharon.
"I am even more concerned about how the government's approach to disengagement is dividing Israeli society," said the minister without portfolio who had responsibility for diaspora affairs.
Accepting Sharansky's resignation, Sharon paid tribute to the former minister for his "exceptional work".
"I would like to wish him success and to emphasize that his achievements have been impressive in the all of the fields that he has dealt with," he told a cabinet meeting that Sharansky did not attend.
Sharon has consistently overridden the objections of former right-wing allies such as Sharansky over the Gaza pullout, which he believes will ease pressure on Israel to carry out a more comprehensive pullout from the West Bank.
The government sought Monday to strengthen its hold on the West Bank by approving the establishment of the first university within a Jewish settlement, deep inside the occupied Palestinian territory.
All 8,000 settlers in Gaza are due to be uprooted from their homes in either July or August along with several hundred residents of four small Jewish enclaves in the northern West Bank.
Disengagement has already won parliamentary approval and Sharon has reshaped his cabinet to marginalise opponents such as Sharansky.
While the prospect of a departure from Gaza has aroused huge controversy within Israel, Sharon's resolve has been strengthened by widespread international support for the project.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan, following in the footsteps of Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, held talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah where he said that Ankara was ready to do anything it was asked to advance the peace process.
"We have let it be known to the two parties, with whom we enjoy excellent relations, that we are completely ready to do anything we can to contribute towards peace," Erdogan told reporters.
Abbas welcomed the idea of Turkish mediation in the peace process, although Sharon made clear at a meeting with Erdogan on Sunday that he would prefer any assistance to be limited to help for the Palestinians after Israel leaves Gaza.
Sharon's most important supporter of disengagement has been Bush, who ironically has been singing the praises of Sharansky -- jailed in the former Soviet Union after being convicted of spying for the United States.
"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Nathan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy," Bush said in a recent interview.
In events on the ground, an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant were killed during an overnight gunbattle in the West Bank.
The army said exchanges of fire broke out when troops had gone to arrest "wanted terrorists" near the town of Tulkarem, leading to the death of 21-year-old staff sergeant Dan Telesnikov.
Palestinian sources named the dead militant as 35-year-old Shafiq Abdelghani, a member of the hardline Islamic Jihad movement.
Such incidents have become rare since January when Palestinian militants agreed to observe a de facto truce. Abbas has warned he will use an "iron fist" against those who violate the pact.
05/02/2005 15:11 GMT