January 30, 2003

Likud says Labor can be swayed to join government

By Gil Hoffman

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's closest advisers reported progress toward building a national-unity government on Wednesday, as senior Labor officials began to reveal cracks in the party's opposition to joining a Likud-led coalition.

Just one day after Labor fell to its worst election defeat in the party's history, veteran MKs Shimon Peres, Ephraim Sneh, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer all strayed from party chairman Amram Mitzna's firm commitment to rebuilding the party in the opposition.

The Likud received nearly double Labor's support in the race, winning 37 seats in the 16th Knesset compared to 19 for Labor, 15 for Shinui, and 11 for Shas. Final election results, including more than 200,000 votes from soldiers, inmates, and foreign emissaries, are set to be released Thursday night and made official next week.

Mitzna spent the day in private consultations with his party's MKs, including Peres and Ben-Eliezer, in an effort to create a united front against joining the government ahead of an expected Sharon-Mitzna meeting when coalition talks begin next week.

"What matters to me is the path, not the government," Peres told reporters after leaving the meeting with Mitzna. Pressed in a later interview on his willingness to join a national-unity government, he said, "There is no point in joining a coalition just to be a member of it, but if there would be a coalition of peace, then my answer would be yes."

Peres, who called Sharon to congratulate him, defended his two years as Sharon's foreign minister in media interviews, saying he does not believe defending his country from international boycotts is a sin and that the welfare of the state must come before the good of the party.

Sneh said Mitzna's decision to rule out joining a Sharon-led government did the party tremendous harm, deepening its defeat.

Ben-Eliezer went further, going on national television to list conditions that would enable Labor to join the government. The terms included beginning immediate negotiations with Palestinian Authority officials, changing national priorities to help development towns, and withdrawing illegal settlement outposts.

"We will judge Sharon only on his actions," said Ben-Eliezer, who holds a majority over Mitzna in the central committee that will decide whether the party enters the government. "If it becomes clear that the prime minister intends to enter serious diplomatic negotiations based on US President George W. Bush's road map, we must consider joining a unity government."

Sharon's closest ally in the cabinet, Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, said the prime minister instructed him to give radio interviews on Thursday morning to announce that Sharon has adopted the Bush plan.

Likud officials close to Sharon said that Ben-Eliezer's conditions are relatively tame and leave room for progress in negotiations. Sharon instructed his closest aides not to begin negotiating with factions on joining the government until next week, when President Moshe Katsav is expected to officially invite him to form a coalition.

Katsav revealed his coalition preference Wednesday morning, when he called upon Mitzna to abandon his resistance to joining a Sharon-led coalition. "I understand Mitzna's inner considerations, but I still call on him to join a national-unity government," Katsav said.

"I have no doubt that there will ultimately be a unity government," Sharon coalition strategist Eyal Arad told The Jerusalem Post. "Peres and Fuad [Ben-Eliezer] helped write the guidelines that will be the basis for the government, so they will have a tough time opposing it. There's enough common ground between Labor and us. It will be ironic if even [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak is willing to sit with Sharon, but not Mitzna."

Likud campaign manager Leor Horev said the statements of Labor leaders are a good sign that Labor will eventually drop its resistance to joining the government, as it did in 2001.

Sharon told Channel 1 after his victory speech that he would rather hold another round of elections than form a narrow government of only right-wing parties. If he is unsuccessful at forming a government with Labor, his advisers said Sharon would shift his focus to Shinui, which is demanding that haredi parties be left outside the coalition.

Shinui leader Yosef (Tommy) Lapid said he would be willing to join a government with Shas and United Torah Judaism only in the case of an all-out war with Iraq.

"We would be there from the first missile to the last missile and then we would leave," Lapid told Channel 1. "We will not use the war with Iraq as an excuse to get stuck in a government that we have no interest in."

Sharon has several options of coalitions to build that would include the 52 MKs of Likud and Shinui. Sharon could invite the National Religious Party and Am Ehad to reach the bare minimum of 61 MKs. He could add the National Union to such a coalition, but Lapid said he does not want his party to serve as the left flank in a rightist coalition.

Shas chairman Eli Yishai called upon Sharon not to forsake his natural coalition partners, urging him to make a deal with Shas instead of Shinui. He said a government without Shas and United Torah Judaism would be "unreliable and unstable."

Yisrael B'Aliya, which would be a natural coalition partner, is unlikely to join the government after falling in the election to only two MKs. MK Yuli Edelstein said he would prefer to keep the faction out of the government to concentrate on rehabilitating the party.

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