Jewish settler leaders failed in a rare meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday to persuade him to back their proposal to put his planned Gaza withdrawal to a national referendum.
"He said he totally rejected the demand for a referendum," Yehoshua Mor-Yosef of the umbrella YESHA Council of Jewish settlements told reporters outside Sharon's office.
In a statement, the group described the meeting as a "disgrace". It said Sharon, once seen by YESHA as the champion of settlement on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as "a closed-minded prime minister" leading Israel into division.
Sharon is struggling to keep his ruling coalition together amid far-right opposition to the plan for evacuating Jewish settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in order to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.
Some 8,000 Jewish settlers live in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.3 million Palestinians. There are 240,000 settlers and two million Palestinians in the West Bank.
Advocates of a referendum say it could ensure political stability and possibly prevent violence, but Sharon spurned an earlier call and his supporters feel it would delay a plan that polls show to have the backing of most Israelis.