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Israeli
Coalition Crumbles After Labor Ministers Quit
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Ben-Eliezer
(L) and Sharon disagreed over the settlements issue
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli
defense, foreign and culture ministers - all form the Labor Party -
resigned Wednesday, October 30, from the government of far-right Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, after Sharon's rejection of a tentative budget
deal with Labor that equated funding on social services with that on
illegal settlements.
Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres submitted his resignation late Wednesday
shortly after the head of his Labor Party, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer, quit, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
At
the same time, Culture Minister Matan Vilnai likewise quit from the
coalition government after talks to thrash out a compromise on a 2003
austerity budget failed.
Ben-Eliezer's
resignation came after Sharon's rejection of a tentative budget deal
with Labor. The proposed deal was believed to contain language promising
that social programs would have parity with funding given to (illegal)
Jewish settlements, CNN reported.
The
major sticking point in negotiations was $147 million earmarked for the
settlements, which is favored by Sharon's Likud party. Labor wants the
money diverted to social services benefiting pensioners, one-parent
families, students and low-income locales, CNN added.
Negotiators
talked past the noon scheduled time for a vote on a new Israeli budget
in an attempt to keep together the coalition, of which Labor controls a
major part.
Labor
voting against the budget and eventual quitting the government means
Sharon will be left with a minority of votes in the 120-member Knesset.
He will have two options: try to form a new government by appealing to
small, right-wing religious parties to join his coalition or call for
new elections, according to CNN.
Sharon
has been an ardent supporter of building settlements - an instrument of
Israeli occupation aimed at dividing any future Palestinian state into
noncontiguous portions.
Israel's
illegal settler community, which numbers some 200,000 living in occupied
Palestinian West Bank land, is claimed by many Israelis as essential for
Israel's security. Jewish settlements in Gaza are less populated.
About
200 Jewish colonial settlements have been set up in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip since Israel seized the territories in the 1967 Middle East
war. All the settlements, according to U.N. resolutions, are illegal.
Some 60 so-called "rogue" settlements, often just a cluster of
caravans, have popped up in recent years.
According
to a June 30, 2002 report by Israeli peace group Peace Now, ever since
Sharon came into power in February 2001, Jewish settlers in the West
Bank have built 44 new sites.
"Nine
of these new sites were erected in the period March-June 2002," the
Peace Now report said. It added that "the term 'outposts' is
misleading. To all intents and purposes these sites are new settlements:
they have independent infrastructures and are spread over new pieces of
land."
Peace
Now spokesman Tzali Reshef said in a statement that the Israeli
government "is systematically violating its commitment to the
Israeli public as written in the coalition agreement that formed the
basis for the national unity government."
Meanwhile,
Israel's daily Ha'aretz reported that attorneys from both Likud
and Labor parties met until 2 a.m. in an effort to reach an agreement
that called for Labor to support the budget and then hold talks with
Likud over revisions before final approval.
However,
Ben-Eliezer vetoed the compromise, and Sharon rejected Labor's
counter-proposal to delay the vote.
Anticipating
the government's collapse, Ben-Eliezer said Tuesday, October 29, that
Sharon should meet with him to settle on a date for new elections.
Sharon
said legislators must vote for the budget to show Israel's allies -
including the United States - that it is serious about putting its
economy back on track.
Silvan
Shalom, the Israeli Finance Minister, blamed Ben-Eliezer for the crisis,
saying the Labor Party leader was playing "local politics" in
the face of party primary elections in two weeks, CNN reported.
"Those
who decided against this agreement are shaking the stability of the
Israeli government," Shalom was quoted by CNN as saying.
Meanwhile,
a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli
security guards protecting Israeli laborers Wednesday after he opened
fire on them on a road in the northern West Bank village of Zeita, the
Israeli occupation army said, according to AFP.
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