Governments of all hues have withstood domestic and international pressure to pull out of any part of the West Bank or Gaza Strip since their occupation began after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Sharon, who was regarded as the Israel's most right-wing ever leader, is now poised to carry out an evacuation process which was beyond all imagination when he came to power in 2001.

MPs on Tuesday backed Sharon's so-called disengagement plan which will see 8,000 settlers removed next year from the Gaza Strip, home to about 1.3 million Palestinians.

Yossi Beilin, a one-time justice minister who was one of the chief architects of the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians in the 1990s, said Sharon's project must be regarded positively.

"I do believe it was a big victory for the peace camp in Israel," Beilin, who heads the leftist Yahad party, told AFP. "This is not exactly what we want, but it's a small beginning."

Beilin is one of the driving forces behind an unofficial peace blueprint known as the Geneva Initiative.

But while the Geneva plan was drawn up with Palestinians, Sharon is implementing his so-called disengagement plan on a unilateral basis.

Beilin said Sharon was making "a huge mistake in withdrawing without any coordination with the Palestinian side."

But he said the premier had set a precedent that must be exploited by the peace movement which has been in the doldrums amid the violence of the four-year Palestinian uprising.

"The opposition will not let Sharon stop at Gaza," he said.

Yariv Oppenheimer of the settlement watchdog Peace Now also gave a qualified welcome to the decision by MPs to approve Sharon's plan to dismantle all 21 settlements in Gaza and another four in the northern West Bank next year.

"It's not our dream, we want to see much more but it's a beginning. Now we hope it will be implemented, that'll be the real test," he said.

Other Israeli doves believe Sharon and his right-wing Likud party are the only people who can oversee a pullout.

Ami Ayalon, former head of the domestic Shin Beth security service who has co-authored another peace plan, has argued the evacuation process has to be led by people "who believe it is a very sad, painful moment."

Veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery however said it was a mistake to believe Sharon's plan could advance peace.

"It's not a peace plan but a war plan which will, if implemented, give back six percent of occupied Palestinian territory to strengthen Israel's presence on 94 percent of the rest, in the West Bank," he told AFP.

But Avnery admitted one of its unintended merits was to have unleashed "a confrontation between those who want Greater Israel on the whole of Palestine and beyond, based on religious, fascist concepts and all of those who object to that."

"The battle has just begun but may become more decisive over time."

Beilin's Palestinian co-author of the Geneva Initiative also had a less than favorable assessment of the plan.

"If we do not see an end to settlement activity in the West Bank and the construction of the wall, and if the Gaza withdrawal does not result in the end of Israel's occupation there, there is no serious progress," Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, told AFP.

"Ending Israel's presence in Gaza means relinquishing control of its borders, airspace and sea so that it can become a sovereign territory that will be part of a future Palestinian state," he added.

However, the Sharon plan stipulates that Israel will keep control of every entry point in and out of the Gaza, including its airspace and territorial waters.

And Sharon has made clear he sees leaving Gaza as a way of easing international pressure to dismantle West Bank settlement blocs where the vast majority of settlers live.