Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began trying yesterday to form a right-wing government after the Labor Party abandoned his ruling coalition in a bitter dispute over funding for Jewish settlements.
Sharon lost his parliamentary majority when the center-left party quit, and Israeli officials said he was trying to form a narrower alliance with far-right and religious parties that could demand a harder line against the Palestinians.
"We will continue to serve the people of Israel, even under the difficult conditions that have been created," Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar told reporters.
Labor's pullout ended a 19-month "national unity" partnership forged as a common front against a Palestinian uprising. The break-up could undermine US efforts to calm the region while it prepares for a possible war on Iraq.
"No chance," Labor's leader, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, replied when asked on Army Radio if he might change his mind about bolting from the coalition before the split becomes final late tomorrow after a 48-hour mandatory cooling-off period extended until the end of the Jewish sabbath.
Former army chief Shaul Mofaz, known for tough tactics against the Palestinians and advocating Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's expulsion, agreed to take over from Ben-Eliezer, an Israeli diplomatic source said yesterday.
Arafat responded that the appointment did not bode well for efforts to calm more than two years of Middle East violence.
"Mofaz has accepted the post of defense minister," the Israeli source said. Israeli media said the appointment must be approved by the government and then parliament, a process likely to take place in the next week.
Mofaz, army chief until July this year, employed tough tactics against the Palestinian uprising which erupted in September 2000, about halfway through his four-year tenure heading the Middle East's mightiest army.
"We did everything [to avert the break-up]," Sharon, head of the rightist Likud party, told a stormy session of parliament on Wednesday night.
After the collapse of his broad-based coalition, Sharon vowed to go on leading the country, suggesting he wanted to avoid early elections.
Israel Radio reported he had started making contacts with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, whose seven seats in the 120-member parliament could restore Sharon's majority in the legislature.
Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erekat said the coalition crisis was further evidence that Israeli politics was "moving faster and faster away from an atmosphere of peace."
With the departure of the center-left Labor Party, which has 25 members in the Knesset, Sharon now controls only 55 parliamentary seats.
The crisis was precipitated by Ben-Eliezer's demands to divert funds earmarked for Jewish settlements to the poor and the elderly.
But critics inside and outside Labor said the hawkish Ben-Eliezer had latched on to the issue only to try to beat back dovish challengers leading him in opinion polls ahead of a Nov. 19 election for the party chairmanship.
Ben-Eliezer has denied the allegations.
Sharon, a long-time champion of settlement building, was in no mood to make concessions a day after a Palestinian gunman killed three settlers in the West Bank.
When last-ditch talks failed, Ben-Eliezer resigned followed by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and four other ministers.
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