Discordance In Bid For Unity (Coalition Building in Israel)

Arutz 7 ^ | 30 January 2002

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Discordance In Bid For Unity Official coalition negotiations will begin only after President Moshe Katzav officially charges Ariel Sharon with forming the next government. In the meantime, Sharon's plan to form a broad-based government continues to face difficulties. He is not concerned, however. "Nothing in my life has been easy," he said.

The leaders of the second and third largest parties - Amram Mitzna of Labor and Tommy Lapid of anti-hareidi Shinui - met today, but neither convinced the other to accept his position. Lapid tried to persuade Mitzna to agree to enter a unity government, while the latter wants Lapid to join him in forming a "strong opposition." Mitzna and Lapid are also expected to meet with Prime Minister Sharon in the coming days, though no date has been set. At present, noted Arutz-7's Haggai Segal, it appears that only an American attack on Iraq will bring about the "emergency" circumstances that will cause Labor to join Likud and Shinui to join Shas in a unity government.

Cracks have begun to emerge in Labor's united front on this issue, however. Lower-level Labor leaders, led by Rishon LeTzion Mayor Meir Nitzan and Regional Councils Forum Chairman Shmulik Rifman, have begun collecting signatures for a petition in favor of joining a unity government. In addition, at a meeting of Labor party leaders this afternoon, Shimon Peres made it clear that the party never officially decided not to join a unity government. He stood his ground even in the face of sharp criticism from Avraham Burg, who said that Peres was embarrassing the party by not coming out strongly against joining a unity government. Avraham Shochat and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also objected to Peres' position, saying that the party must remain in the opposition.

The National Religious Party's Rabbi Yitzchak Levy says that his party will not enter the coalition government if its guidelines include the Road Map plan. "A government committed to the Road Map," Levy said, "will be the first one to ever include the establishment of a Palestinian state in its guidelines, and the NRP cannot agree to that."

Professors for a Strong Israel (http://www.professors.org.il), in a call to the "parties of the National Camp," calls for the formation of a united front to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. The organization also asks them to ensure that the Road Map and "President Bush's vision" be excluded from the new coalition's guidelines, and to prevent the formation of a government without the right-wing. Though Sharon seems quite determined to base his coalition on the Road Map - and therefore to keep most of the right-wing out of his government - the organization notes that the election results "can be interpreted in many ways, but there is no way they can be read as a green light for the revival of the Oslo accords by a Sharon government."