JERUSALEM, March 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli parliament's Finance Committee voted 10-9 on Wednesday in favor of the 2005 budget, sending the package to the full legislature where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faces a tough battle for final approval next week.  

    Following the vote, Sharon has to win the vote over the state budget by month's end or face a snap election that would threaten his plan to pull out of Gaza.

   According to Israeli law, a general election must be held within three months if the 264.5 billion shekel ($62 billion) budget is not passed by March 31.

   An early national ballot could put Sharon's "disengagement plan"on hold, or possibly lead to it being shelved altogether, while complicating any new peace moves with the Palestinians.  

   The committee's approval of the budget followed fierce infighting in Sharon's rightist Likud party, which is sharply divided over his intention to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank.

   Sharon's coalition holds 67 of 120 seats in the Knesset, but his margin has been jeopardized by the threat of about a dozen Likud rebel deputies to reject the budget in protest at the Gaza plan.  

    Under a compromise, Likud rebels agreed to back the budget in the committee in return for support from pro-Sharon Likud legislators in another parliamentary panel for a proposal, to bevoted on Wednesday, to hold a referendum on the Gaza plan.   Sharon opposes a referendum, calling it a delaying tactic.  

    Israeli Knesset (parliament)'s Law, Justice and Constitution Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow a national referendum on the disengagement plan.

   The bill, which passed by a vote of 9-8, will be presented tothe Knesset plenum for voting, although it seems unlikely that it will muster majority support.  Enditem