No progress in Likud-National Union coalition talks

Ha'aretz ^ | 24 February 2003 | Yossi Verter and Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

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No progress in Likud-National Union coalition talks
By Yossi Verter and Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

Shinui chairman Yosef Lapid at talks with the Likud on Sunday. (Photo: Nir Keidar)

Coalition talks between the Likud and the far-right National Union, which vociferously opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, ended without any progress Monday afternoon.

The two sides were deadlocked over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's commitment to include the notion of Palestinian statehood in the guidelines of his new government.

The Likud coalition team presented a document at the meeting stipulating that the government would operate on the basis of Sharon's "Herzliya speech," and that this would be an integral part of the government guidelines.

In that speech, at a conference in Herzliya several months ago, Sharon said he was committed to the vision of a permanent settlement that U.S. President George W. Bush had outlined for Israel and the Palestinians, and which includes the creation of a Palestinian state at the end of the process.

National Union leader Avigdor Lieberman said he was not prepared to accept any mention of a Palestinian state in the government guidelines, and the meeting ended with the Likud team promising to come up with a "creative" solution to the dispute. If one is found, the two sides could meet again Monday evening or Tuesday.

Earlier Monday, Shinui Chairman Yosef "Tommy" Lapid said on Army Radio that he had received a letter from Sharon in which the prime minister committed himself to following Bush's "road map" for peace in the Middle East, with dozens of adjustments proposed by a Likud team last week.

Shinui signed a coalition agreement with Likud in the early hours of Monday morning, according to which the stridently secular party will get five ministerial portfolios, including the Interior and Justice ministries. Lapid is expected to take justice for himself, while MK Avraham Poraz is likely to get interior.

Shinui will also get the National Infrastructures portfolio, Environment and Science. In addition, Lapid will serve as deputy Prime Minister and will be a member of Sharon's kitchen cabinet.

Sharon plans to present his new 61-member coalition to the Knesset on Thursday.

Fuming at being excluded from the coalition, Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef lashed out at Sharon on Monday, calling him the "prime minister of garbage cans."

But Shas members were as bitter in their criticism of the NRP as they were of the prime minister. Outgoing Labor and Social Affairs Minister Shlomo Benizri described the Shinui-NRP deal as an "unsacred pact."

Party leader Eli Yishai, who will have to hand over control of the powerful Interior Ministry to Shinui, predicted an economic "catastrophe" and promised Sharon nothing less than a revolution in the streets.

He said that the prime minister had "betrayed" the Sephardi Orthodox and Likud voters by preferring to put together a coalition that included neither the religious nor the weaker sectors of society.