Israel’s opposition Labor party said on Sunday it had no preconditions for joining with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, paving the way for a broad new government to push through his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Sharon needs Labor to rebuild his coalition, avert early elections and overcome rightist rebels opposed to withdrawing from Gaza under a plan seen by Western countries as a possible step to peace with Palestinians after Yasser Arafat’s death.
Center-left Labor and Sharon’s right-wing Likud began coalition talks on Saturday. Labor leader Shimon Peres, a veteran peacemaker and firm backer of Sharon’s “disengagement plan,” said a deal could be clinched within days.
Labor was expected to demand as many as 10 cabinet posts, but the party’s chief negotiator ruled out preconditions.
“Let this be clear: There will be a government,” Haim Ramon told Army Radio on Sunday. “The question is whether we will sit in this government with significant cabinet portfolios, or if we enter this government without portfolios.”
“It must be remembered that we decided on this process because we want, along with the prime minister, to take the people of Israel out of Gaza,” he said.
Evacuation plans
Sharon wants to evacuate all the settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank next year in a bid to “disengage” from fighting with the Palestinians. Both territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Buoyed by new hopes of peace after Arafat’s death last month, Western countries see the Gaza plan as a positive move. But Palestinians fear Israel will use it as a ruse to strengthen its hold on the West Bank.
Sharon lost his parliamentary majority by firing his biggest coalition partner, the secularist Shinui party, on Dec. 1 in a spat over funding for religious groups. Far-right allies had left earlier over the Gaza plan.
Fearing early elections, he has been scrambling to rebuild his government and push through the initiative. Likud reversed its earlier ban on talks with Labor in an important victory for Sharon last week.
But haggling over ministry portfolios, differences over the 2005 budget and the entry of two Orthodox Jewish parties could still delay a deal.
Peres, 81, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Sharon, 76, an ex-general who once championed the settler movement, have forged such an alliance before. Peres served as foreign minister under a Sharon-led unity government from 2001 to 2002.
This time, Sharon is expected to keep the top portfolios in Likud hands while offering Peres the post of deputy prime minister. According to media reports, Peres could also get a tailor-made new cabinet portfolio — “disengagement minister.”
Polls show most Israelis favor parting with impoverished Gaza, but hardliners describe any pullout as a “reward for terrorism.” Palestinians want all of Gaza and the West Bank for a future state.