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Barak Not To Join Sharon Government
JERUSALEM, Feb 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's ability to form a national unity government was thrown into question Tuesday, only days ahead of a visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, as caretaker premier Ehud Barak pulled out of the game.
Barak announced late Tuesday night that he was renouncing an agreement with Sharon to take up the post of defense minister in a unity government.
CNN reports that the move comes after two days of turmoil as Barak tried to persuade his party to join a National Unity government.
Barak also confirmed he would keep a promise made on the night Sharon defeated him for re-election two weeks ago to give up his seat in parliament and his leadership of the Labor party, doing this once a new government is formed.
Sharon and Barak agreed last week to form a coalition, but fierce opposition from within the Labor party led Barak to push back a party vote on the decision until Monday.
With Barak's withdrawal, Labor's eventual posture toward Sharon is an unknown.
However, CNN speculates that as the debate over Barak's participation in a Sharon government continued, it appeared Barak himself was becoming an obstacle to the formation of a unity government.
With Barak out of the picture, CNN says, the chances of Labor joining a broad-based government with the right-wing Likud party have increased.
Sharon, however, is worried that Israel, dealing with the more than five months of steady violence that has wracked the region, would be "speaking with two voices" when Powell visits as part of his Middle East tour due, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said.
He said Sharon had set no formal deadline, but that Likud was urging Labor "to finish as quickly as possible because of the gravity of the security situation.
CNN also reports that without support from Labor, Sharon would have to turn to Israel's nationalist and religious parties to form a government. Those parties have been critical of Barak's efforts to forge a peace agreement with the Palestinians and could obstruct new talks.
That situation was punctuated by the continuation Tuesday of sporadic violence.
A Palestinian woman stabbed a Jewish settler and a Palestinian schoolgirl shot in the leg and hand by the army in Hebron.
And seven Palestinians were wounded Tuesday night - one of them seriously - when Israeli troops opened fire on the village of Beit Jala, in the West Bank south of Jerusalem, Palestinian medical sources said.
In another incident Tuesday night, a Jewish settler was seriously injured when he was hit by two bullets fired at him as he drove toward the settlement of Gush Etzion, near Bethlehem, a military source said.
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, Israel allowed a resumption of fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, several days after sealing off the territory in reaction to a deadly hit-and-run bus attack, Palestinian officials said.
On Monday, an activist from the resistance movement Hamas was shot and killed near a refugee camp, in what Palestinians called an assassination by Israel.
The activist, 25-year-old Mahmud el-Madini, had been involved in at least two bombings in Israel and was on his way to commit another attack, according to Israeli media.
Palestinian forces have detained several people over the killing, the head of Palestinian intelligence in Nablus, Talal Dweikat, said, declining to say whether those arrested were suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Some 20,000 people attended el-Madini's funeral in the West Bank town of Nablus, waving Palestinian and Hamas flags and chanting "revenge, revenge."
"This gathering is a message to the Israeli occupation that blood will only make us steadfast and united," Jamal Mansur, a prominent Hamas leader in Nablus, told the crowds.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Monday the "aggression against our people, the blockade on our towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the attacks by the Israeli army only strengthen our determination to resist."
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hosted his first direct talks with a Palestinian envoy since President George W. Bush took office a month ago.
Powell, who leaves for the Middle East on Friday, discussed current tensions in the region with Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath, a State Department official said.
The meeting focused on the steps Palestinians and Israelis need to take to get back to the negotiating table after the Palestinian uprising erupted in September, said the official on condition of anonymity.
Powell is due to arrive in Israel on Saturday night, and meet with Sharon, Barak and Israeli President Moshe Katsav before leaving Sunday.
Arafat, who will also meet with Powell on Sunday, said the Palestinians expected the secretary of state "to push forward the peace process and to protect it after all that we have faced."
Powell's trip comes as Israeli and U.S. forces continue a week of joint exercises, including training on Patriot missiles.
The drills follow renewed Iraqi threats against the Jewish state following a U.S.-British air raid on Baghdad, although both U.S. and Israeli officials have insisted that the exercises were planned long in advance.
For his part, Syria's foreign minister, Faruq al-Shara, said he was "less optimistic" about the Bush administration following the raids on Iraq.
Speaking during a joint press conference in Damascus with visiting Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, he said he hoped this was a "passing" incident and that the Bush administration will contribute with "seriousness and effectiveness to resolving the problems of the region."
Heightening tension with Syria, the chairman of Israel's joint chiefs of staff, General Shaul Mofaz, recommended that the Jewish state "react" to an attack Friday by the Damascus-backed Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah that killed one Israeli soldier.
His remarks come in contrast to those Sunday by Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, who warned that, "massive retaliation could widen the risks of confrontation, particularly with Syria."
In another U.S.-led effort in the region, a Palestinian official said that a fact-finding commission into the causes of the Intifada would travel to the region next month.
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