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Israel's Feuding Labor Debates Joining With Sharon
TEL AVIV, Feb 26 (News Agencies) - Israel's Labor party, wracked by bitter internal squabbling, began a stormy debate Monday on whether to join a broad-based government with hardline Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon to tackle the seething crisis with the Palestinians.
And underscoring the problems a new government will face, the death toll mounted on Monday shortly after the Labor meeting started when a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in an exchange of fire near a West Bank refugee camp.
The meeting of the party's central committee in Tel Aviv started out with bickering between leading figures over whether to join the opposition or become part of a coalition set to include controversial far-right elements.
"The time has come to listen to the voice of the people who want national unity," said former Labor prime minister Shimon Peres, who is likely to take over at the helm of the splintered party temporarily following the resignation of Ehud Barak last week.
"In an area not far from us, Iraq is preparing a nuclear option, and [we must act] before the state becomes immersed in violence and blood," he said, referring to the deadly wave of Israeli-Palestinian bloodletting that has cost 420 lives.
Labor's 1,700-strong central committee is due to vote by secret ballot on choosing a new leader and on national unity. If approved, it is due to meet again on Wednesday to distribute ministerial portfolios offered by Likud.
Peres said he was not interested in running Labor permanently, although he has been nominated as interim chairman until leadership elections expected in a few months.
Known as a perennial loser on the Israeli political scene, but who is respected internationally for his role in forging the 1993 Oslo peace accords that won him a Nobel peace prize, the 77-year-old Peres is tipped for the foreign ministry post.
Sharon, the hawkish 73-year-old former general, who trounced Barak in a special leadership election three weeks ago, has been anxious to forge a broad right-left government to temper his hardline image in efforts to end the deadly five-month wave of violence and revive stalled peacemaking.
He told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday that he would not resume talks with the Palestinians nor ease a crippling Israeli blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at least made a public declaration to halt the unrest.
But outgoing Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami said joining a unity government with Sharon could be the kiss of death for Labor, left rudderless and divided after Barak's crushing 25 point defeat on February 6th.
"It's forbidden for a democracy to work without an opposition," he said. "In opposition we can be a united party. Joining a hardline unity government will erase our identity as a movement."
Likud members have threatened that if Labor does not make a final decision Monday, it may form a narrow coalition government and including religious and controversial far-right figures.
Sharon faces an end of March deadline to form a government or new elections will be triggered.
"The final obstacles have been overcome, and from our point of view everything is settled, the joint government program, the distribution of ministerial portfolios and official tasks," said Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin. "We are just waiting for the green light from the Labor central committee."
Gissin said the parties have agreed that the agriculture ministry will go to Labor in exchange for the communications portfolio. Labor would also receive the defense, foreign affairs, trade and industry, transport and science portfolios, as well as two posts without portfolio.
In Monday's violence, Palestinian teenager Hussam Imad al-Dissi, 17, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a gunfight in fighting near the Qalandia refugee camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem, hospital sources said.
The Israeli army also said five grenades were thrown toward one of its positions near Rafah on the border between Israel and Egypt and that it returned fire toward the suspected source. No injuries were reported.
The army also said it blew up an explosive device soldiers found on a border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel north of the Karni crossing point.
Separately, Palestinian gunmen opened fire toward Israeli citizens in the Neve Dekalim industrial area, the army said. No one was hurt, but a car was damaged.
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