jerusalem | With an eye toward withdrawing Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres, lifelong friends and career rivals, are back at their old game of government building and haggling.
Negotiators for Prime Minister Sharon and opposition leader Peres met early this week for what looked to be a very short round of talks on forging a unity coalition after their respective parties approved the union last week.
Sharon hopes to unveil Israel’s new government next week. Labor, the main opposition party, appears to be already is on board, though it remains unclear how many Cabinet portfolios it will get. At press time, Labor and Likud were arguing over terms of the government’s budget.
Political sources said that talks between Sharon’s Likud Party and the influential Orthodox Shas Party were close to fruition and that a new, broad coalition would be in place within a week.
But media reports this week also indicated that Shas — whose spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has ruled against pulling out of Gaza — was demanding as a condition for joining the coalition that party members be allowed to vote their conscience when the actual withdrawal comes to a vote.
According to the reports, though, party insiders said it was unlikely the issue would keep Shas out of Sharon’s government.
Media reports said Sharon had wooed Shas by vowing to undo anti-religious legislation pursued by Sharon’s former coalition partner, the secularist Shinui Party.
Meanwhile, Peres’ Labor Party did not even make specific demands for Cabinet posts in throwing a political lifeline to Sharon, who recently lost his parliamentary majority.
“Let’s be clear on this: There will be a government,” Labor’s Haim Ramon told Army Radio. “The question is whether we join this government with significant Cabinet portfolios, or without.”
Under Peres, Labor has set a high premium on helping Sharon push through his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank next year.
While media reports suggest Peres could be rewarded with a tailor-made post of “disengagement minister” in the next government, the Labor leader has made no mention of any such payback.
“We expect to see a deal within days,” he told reporters.
But Sharon also needs help passing the battered 2005 budget, which Shinui blocked in the Knesset earlier this month to protest funding for religious causes. Sharon fired Shinui ministers for not voting in line with him.
In parallel, Israel has been tacitly encouraging the campaign to find a successor to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the Jan. 9 elections.
The frontrunner, Palestine Liberation Organization chief Mahmoud Abbas, looked almost certain to get a boost after his main rival for the presidency, jailed West Bank militia leader Marwan Barghouti, said through confidants that he would withdraw from the race.
Significantly, however, Abbas agreed to Barghouti’s demand that he include support for “armed resistance” on his platform as the candidate of Fatah, the main PLO faction.
Last week, the Israeli Cabinet approved in principle the release of as many as 200 Palestinian security prisoners on condition that they’re not serving sentences for terrorist attacks that killed or seriously hurt Israelis.
But the officials also acknowledged that the releases could boost Abbas’ prestige among Palestinians.
“It never hurts for the Palestinian moderates to be perceived as making gains from Israel. But as far as we are concerned, the real test is in whether they can stop the terrorism,” one Israeli official said.