December 1, 2004
NO TIME TO GO WOBBLY:
Turmoil in Jerusalem as Sharon breaks up coalition. . . (Ian MacKinnon and Richard Beeston, 12/02/04, Times of London)
ARIEL SHARON’S shaky government was in turmoil last night after the Israeli Prime Minister sacked the junior partner from his ruling coalition.His future as Prime Minister and momentous plans to withdraw Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip now depend on his ability to form a new coalition with the opposition Labour party and its veteran leader Shimon Peres.
Mr Sharon is likely to open formal talks with Labour almost immediately, but months of backroom discussions over whether Labour would join the government have so far proved fruitless.
Labour backs Mr Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal plan, and would make that a firm condition of it joining the government. But powerful rebels in Mr Sharon’s Likud party determined to block his Gaza plan have resisted any such “unity coalition”.
If Mr Sharon fails to form a new government quickly he would be forced to call fresh elections which would wreck his cherished timetable for withdrawing Jewish settlements from Gaza by next autumn.
Some observers suspected that Mr Sharon had acted deliberately to replace the smaller Shinui party with the larger Labour grouping, thereby bolstering his fragile government in the longer term.
This is a moment of great danger for Israel as they could put themselves in a position of being a less reliable partner for peace than the elected Palestinian government. You'd have to think though that Likud would be scared of a vote with a citizenry that so wants out of the death dance. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2004 10:32 PM
We can only assume that Sharon has decided to call elections if this does not work out. He probably wants a fresh mandate at the table with Bush and the New Palestinian President.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 2, 2004 12:29 AMRobert,
I think you're right. Labor is about to atomize even further. Barak may form his own party, and with the real idiots like Yossi Beilin and Burg in their own party, there isn't much left for Peres.
One of the glorious things about the last election there was that the religious parties got squashed. The Russian vote is secular, hard-line nationalist and free-market oriented as only people who suffered under Communism can be. Shcharansky's religiousness has made it effectively impossible to be their leader.
Once the thugs, crooks and scumbags of UTJ were brought into the government, Shinui had to walk and blow it up.
Also, Sharon has to change the Likud list, moving his opponents out.
If he can quash the rebels in Likud, he can increase their margin in the Knesset and form a government with Shinui and Barak's faction, leading to a secular free-market oriented government with a sensible approach on the so-called Palestinians.
It's too bad Rahul Eitan died.
Posted by: Bart at December 2, 2004 12:22 PM