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Coalition Building

Looking toward disengagement, Sharon and Peres
are talking unity.

DAN BARON

Jewish Telegilaphic Agency

Jerusalem

W

ith an eye toward withdraw-
ing 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.
0.
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 forg-
ing a unity coalition after their respec-
tive parties approved the union last
week.
Sharon hopes to unveil Israel's new
government next week. Labor, the
main opposition party, already is on
board, though it remains unclear how
many Cabinet portfolios it will get.
Political sources said Dec. 13 that
talks between Sharon's Likud Party
and the influential Orthodox party
Shas were close to fruition and that a
new, broad coalition would be in place
within a week.
But media reports also indicated
that Shas — whose spiritual leader,
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has ruled against
pulling out of Gaza — was demand-
ing 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.
Sharon apparently wooed Shas by
vowing to undo anti-religious legisla-
tion pursued by Sharon's former coali-
tion partner, the secularist Shinui
Party. Another religious party, United
Torah Judaism, also may join the gov-
ernment in a bid by Sharon to off-set
Labor's bargaining power.
Likud negotiators met with a group
from UTJ. According to reports, the
fervently Orthodox party is seeking
three senior government posts and
chairmanship of a key committee.
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 with-

0111.

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 minis-
ter" 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 Dec.
11.
But Sharon also needs help passing
the battered 2005 budget, which
Shinui blocked in the Knesset on Dec.
1 to protest funding for religious caus-
es. Sharon fired Shinui for not voting
in line with him.

Palestinian Vote

At the same time, Israel has been tacit-
ly encouraging the campaign to find a
successor to the late Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat in
Jan. 9 Palestinian elections. The fron-
trunner, PLO 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 con-
fidants that he would withdraw from
the race.
Significantly, however, Abbas agreed
Dec. 12 to Barghouti's demand that
he include support for "armed resist-
ance" on his platform as the candidate
of Fatah, the main PLO faction.
The Israeli Cabinet approved in
principle the release of as many as 200
Palestinian security prisoners on con-
dition that they're not serving sen-
tences for terrorist attacks that killed
or seriously hurt Israelis. Israeli offi-
cials described the measure as part of a
reciprocal arrangement with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, who last
week granted accused Israeli spy
Azzam Azzam an early release from
prison.
But Israeli officials also acknowl-
edged that the releases could boost
Abbas' prestige among Palestinians.1 I

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