Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared to be advancing toward his goal by edging "the unilateral evacuation of settlements" toward becoming an official policy.

A watered-down version of Sharon's Gaza pullout plan won government approval on Sunday in a compromise that puts off any dismantling of Jewish settlements until further votes are held next year.

The right wing-dominated cabinet gave support in principle to Sharon's strategy to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians. In return, Sharon promised no settlement would go before March.

If carried out, the pullout plan would mark the first time Israel has removed settlements built in either the West Bank or Gaza, lands it had seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

The newly approved plan declared Israel's intention to keep a permanent hold on swaths of occupied West Bank land where the bulk of its 240,000 settlers live.

One of the most significant changes from his original plan is that Sharon agreed to put each of the four pullouts to a cabinet vote, suggesting that hardline ministers could still abort the process later.

Israel is not ready to co-ordinate the plan with the Palestinian Authority.

But how can the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian land occupied in the 1967 Middle East War achieve peace or security, if it is not co-ordinated with the Palestinians?

Sharon has clung to the strategy of avoiding a political process at all costs from the 1967 war onward. He fully understood that the inescapable result of such a process would be Israel's return to the 1967 border, with only minor adjustments.

His plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians would rule out the possibility of a Palestinian state, at least for a few years.

Sharon himself admitted that the withdrawal from Gaza would "harm the Palestinians severely" and "put an end to their dreams of a Palestinian state."

But by bringing the dreams of Palestinians to an end, Israel is also ending its own dreams.