Premier Ariel Sharon met with Israeli settler leaders in Jerusalem Sunday afternoon but failed to pacify them regarding his plan to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. The settlers, bitterly opposed to Sharon's initiative to evacuate all 21 Israeli settlements in the Strip, described the meeting as "disgraceful" and said the premier was "closed" to anything they had to say. Settler spokesman Yehoshua Mor-Yosef told reporters the premier had read from texts his advisors had prepared for him. The settlers are pushing for Sharon to call a referendum on the withdrawal plan, but the premier refuses, saying a nationwide poll would be a ploy to delay the withdrawal, due to take place in 2005. Since Israel has no referendum law, any such poll would have to undergo a lengthy legislative process before it could be held. Mor Yosef said that at the meeting Sharon repeated his refusal to hold a referendum. "We did not receive any real answer to our demand to return to the people. He is leading the nation to a split that could end up as a civil war, and continues with his same tune, apathetic to everything going on around him. The disengagement has been launched, Sharon has disengaged from the people," Mor-Yosef said. --More 2325 Local Time 2025 GMT
