Far left: Meretz party
member Uzi Even,
Israel's first openly gay
legislator, is sworn in at
the Knesset on Nov. 4
in Jerusalem.
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Left: Israel's new
Defense Minister
Shaul Mofaz, left, is
congratulated by
former deputy foreign
Minister Michael
Melchior on Nov. 4.
far-right parties, displaying the centrist
tack he will take in his re-election cam-
paign against challengers he will portray,
as too extreme from both the right and
the left. Netanyahu then accepted the
Foreign Ministry offer, arguing that
Sharon had met his main condition.
For Netanyahu, too, it's not a bad
development. As foreign minister, he
would approach the election for party
leader — which will be held before the
national elections — from the best
possible position, political analyst
Sima Kadmon wrote in the Israeli
daily Yediot Achronot•
"He's holding a senior, made-to-
measure post, with the backing of the
government of Israel to go round the
world expressing his views, after having
successfully fixed an agreed date for the
end of Sharon's current tenure."
Netanyahu has been working intensely
on his political comeback since leaving
politics after his landslide loss to Ehud
Barak in May 1999. In the recent Likud
membership drive, which brought in a
total of 305,000 members, he seemed to
have the edge over Sharon.
Polls of Likud members, who will
elect the party's leader and candidate
for prime minister, give Netanyahu a
slight lead.
Sharon had hoped to keep his gov-
ernment going, one way or another,
for a few months longer. Displaying
steady leadership during a time of cri-
sis, such as the expected American
attack on Iraq, would allow him to
open a sizeable lead over Netanyahu,
Sharon believed.
But Sharon soon realized the sce-
nario wasn't possible, at least on his
own terms. Trying to cobble together a
new government after Labor's defec-
tion last week, the prime minister
found himself caught in a tangle of
political and diplomatic contradic-
tions: If he moved to the right, he ran
the risk of confrontation with
Washington. But unless he moved to
the right, his chances of forming a sta-
ble coalition were small.
His determination to avoid antago-
nizing Washington made it almost
impossible for Sharon to satisfy the
demands of potential right-wing coali-
tion partners. Early on in the govern-
ment crisis, Sharon assured the Bush
administration that he would not
change the government guidelines
worked out with the- Labor Party in
March 2001 or retract his support for
the Bush vision of an independent
Palestinian state alongside Israel.
But that is precisely what the
National Union-Israel Our Home fac-
tion was demanding. And there was
another, even more difficult hurdle to
an agreement: The leader of National
Union-Israel Our Home, Avigdor
Lieberman, insisted that Sharon prom-
ise to set up another narrow right-wing
government after the next elections.
"If we are only there to help the
Likud through a rainy day, why
should we bother?" Lieberman
snapped in a radio interview on
Monday. Later that day, he added:
"We are not the Likud's gum, to be
chewed and then discarded."
Sharon's answer was swift. Rejecting
Lieberman's condition, he said he pre-
ferred another national unity govern-
ment with Labor after elections. That
was the signal for early elections.
In the government's remaining 90
days, Netanyahu and the new defense
minister, the former army chief of staff
Shaul Mofaz, might try to coerce
Sharon into expelling Palestinian
Authority leader Yasser Arafat, a move
all three ostensibly favor.
As America prepares an anticipated
attack on Iraq, however, Sharon is
unlikely to do anything to antagonize
Washington or inflame the Arab world.
The Americans' road map is also likely
to be left for the next government.
The composition of the next.gov-
ernment is therefore crucial. Will it be
led by the Likud — and if so, by
Sharon or by Netanyahu?
Or will it be led by Labor — and if
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