JERUSALEM, Aug. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli legislator Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urged lawmakers to join the struggle to thwart the disengagement plan.

    "Only we in the Knesset (parliament) are able to stop this evil...Everything that the Knesset has decided is also capable of changing," Netanyahu, the former finance minister, said in his first speech before the Knesset since his resignation on Sunday to protest the pullout.

    "I am calling on all those who grasp the danger: gather strength and do the right thing. I don't know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages," said Netanyahu, a staunch opponent of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.

    "Twenty years ago I was ready to resign as the ambassador to the United Nations to protest the Jibril (prisoner exchange) deal and now I was ready to give up my post to protest a withdrawal which is immeasurably worse than the Jibril deal," Netanyahu continued. He also criticized the "very bad" deal with Egypt, which allows the deployment of 750 Egyptian border guards along the Philadelphi route between Egypt and Gaza.

    Netanyahu, a strong figure in the ruling Likud, served as prime minister in 1996-1999. Enditem