NEW YORK (AP) – Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was heckled during a speech to Jewish leaders on Sunday, and as many as 1,500 demonstrators staged a noisy street protest outside against the Gaza disengagement plan he was defending.

As Sharon spoke, several protesters scattered throughout the crowd at Baruch College stood up, one shouting, “Jews don’t expel Jews.”

Sharon continued to speak, but the interruption grew louder, and the prime minister had to pause as protesters were escorted out of the Manhattan auditorium. He then received a warm ovation from the crowd of more than a thousand, which overwhelmingly favored his plan.

“Usually I handle these things myself,” he quipped before continuing.

Several of the protesters wore orange T-shirts, the color adopted by Gaza settlers who opposed his plan to remove them from their homes later this summer.

Hundreds of the street demonstrators also donned the orange shirts to underscore their opposition to the Gaza pullout plan, and three of the group ousted from the hall were cheered when they appeared a few minutes later on the outdoor stage.

“We stood up to tell Ariel Sharon to do the right thing,” said one speaker, David Romanoff.

Imposing tight security for Sharon’s visit, police barricaded busy East Side sidewalks to effectively prevent any leakage of the protestors, most of them in black orthodox Jewish garb, toward the corner building housing Baruch College.

Chants of “Never again!” and “Let our people stay!” reached a crescendo when Sharon’s motorcade passed through the intersection 100 yards away. One woman, opposing the rally, displayed a small Palestinian flag.

The rally featured a parade of rabbis and others voicing specific objections to the planned evacuation of some 9,000 residents from Gush Katif, a 30-year-old Jewish community in northern Gaza near the Sinai border.

They described it as a model community that has flourished despite violence and bloodshed.

Speaker after speaker condemned Sharon’s withdrawal plan as a sellout of Jewish rights to the land of Israel that offers a hollow promise of peace.

“To retreat in the face of terrorism is to invite more of it – not less,” shouted Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Jacobson, of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section. “What have these Jews done to be thrown out? Why are they being expelled? Why not expel the terrorists?”

Sharon arrived in New York for a three-day visit to the United States to bolster ties with American Jews, but also to discuss domestic issues like the plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas “knows what he has to do,” Sharon told reporters on his plane. “There certainly has to be complete quiet. Without quiet, it will be impossible to move forward on the peace process.”

In recent days, a flareup of fighting in the Gaza Strip has left three Palestinian militants dead and militants fired rounds of mortar shells and rockets at Israeli communities.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Sunday that Palestinians also want hostilities to end so that talks can progress.

“Both sides should exert an effort to achieve full quiet and once the Israeli guns are silent, we can assure that we will maintain the cessation of violence against Israelis anywhere,” he said.

Abbas was scheduled to arrive in Washington on Tuesday and meet with President Bush on Thursday. He has said he would seek political and financial support from the United States.

Sharon reiterated that Israel would launch a harsh military response if Israeli troops came under fire during the planned withdrawal from Gaza in the summer. However, senior Israeli officials have said no major military operations in Gaza are planned.

Sharon dismissed as “baseless” Israeli media reports that the pullback could be delayed beyond mid-August. Sharon said the forced evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza would begin Aug. 16 of Aug. 17.

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Associated Press writer Richard Pyle contributed to this story.

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