NATAN SHARANSKY, the Soviet dissident-turned-Israeli Cabinet hawk, resigned from the Government yesterday in protest at Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw Jewish settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip.

The departure of the Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs is the latest in a series of resignations and sackings as the Prime Minister pushes through his disengagement plan despite opposition from critics within his ruling coalition and party.

A relatively marginal figure in domestic politics, Mr Sharansky is, thanks to his struggle against Soviet repression, influential far beyond Israel. In November he was at the White House as a guest of President Bush, who said that Mr Sharansky’s book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, was “part of my presidential DNA ”.

Mr Sharansky said he believed that disengagement would create a “terrible rift” in the nation. In his resignation letter he said: “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 also criticised Mr Sharon for pushing it through without demanding Palestinian security reforms in return. This is a refrain of the Israeli Right, which accuses Mr Sharon of weakness in promoting a “something for nothing” initiative.

Mr Sharansky told Israel Army Radio yesterday: “I always saw the disengagement plan as a tragic error, which demands a heavy price from us and also encourages terror. The only justification for the existence of the Government in its current composition is the implementation of the disengagement plan. I don’t think I can be a part of the Government.”

Mr Sharon is unlikely to be seriously troubled by Mr Sharansky’s decision, as he enjoys widespread support among Israelis for withdrawal from Gaza, where 8,000 Jewish settlers live among 1.3 million Palestinians. Many people resent the human and financial cost of maintaining hundreds of Israeli troops in tanks and watchtowers surrounding fortified settlements regarded as illegal under international law.

Although his parliamentary majority vanished after the earlier departure of ministers from the ultra-conservative National Union and National Religious parties, and from Mr Sharon’s own Likud, he can rely on the support of Shimon Peres’s centre-left Labour Party.

Mr Sharon opened the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday by praising the absent Mr Sharansky for his “outstanding work in advancing the issue of dealing with anti-Semitism throughout the world”.

Israel plans to vacate all twenty-one settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank this summer.

Officials estimate that it will cost Israel $1 billion (£528 million) in compensation, not including the costs of the police and army effort to expel the 9,000 settlers, and the expense of relocating military bases from the occupied Gaza Strip.

Amid concern at the prospect of Israeli soldiers clashing with settlers, analysts differ over how many will leave peacefully. Some believe that 70 per cent will go, but one senior military official said that he expected most to resist, even though they will forfeit one third of the compensation packages on offer if they do not leave before the deadline of July 20.

Army officials said that the eviction operation would involve tens of thousands of security forces deployed in six circles. Within a secure inner cordon, unarmed evacuators will knock on settlers’ doors, with snipers nearby in case of trouble. Around them will be three cordons within Gaza to stop other settlers and Palestinians interfering with the operation. A fifth circle, around Gaza, will stop right-wing Israelis descending on the fenced-off Strip to reinforce those refusing to go; a sixth circle will be deployed inside Israel to stop extremists approaching Gaza or creating havoc elsewhere.

After the soldiers move in to haul settlers out, removal men will be sent into the 1,500 houses to pack up their belongings and leave them outside Gaza, where the settlers can pick them up later.

“First, we are going to take all the people out. Then we are going to evacuate their equipment from their homes. Then we are going to dismantle any infrastructure that we are ordered to,” the senior official said. “It hasn’t been decided yet if we are going to take down their houses. Then we are going to take all the military infrastructure out, then we are going to deploy outside the Strip.”

To minimise criticism from pro-settler groups and rabbis, people will be moved in daytime only, and not on the Sabbath, he said.

“We won’t come like thieves in the night,” the official said. “We represent the State of Israel and we will come in the daytime, knock on the door and start doing our job.

“We will do it in a very determined way, but also in a very delicate way, the most delicate way that we can.”

EVER A DISSIDENT

• As a mathematician and “refusenik”, Anatoly Sharansky campaigned for the right for Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel
• Arrested in Moscow by the Soviet authorities in 1977, he was accused of spying for the CIA and spent a decade in prison
• Freed in 1986 after international pressure
• Emigrated to Israel after walking to freedom across the Glienicke Bridge into West Berlin in an exchange of prisoners; changed name to Natan
• Headed Yisrael B’Aliyah (Israel With Immigration) party, supported by Soviet immigrants. Won seven seats in 1996, four in 1999 and two in 2003
• Merged his party with Ariel Sharon’s Likud in February 2003
• His book The Case for Democracy has been quoted as an inspiration by President Bush
• Resigns in May 2005 as Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs

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