Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday invited the opposition Labor Party to open negotiations on joining his government, and officials said they expected the two sides to reach a deal relatively quickly.
A broad-based coalition government with Labor would give Sharon much-needed support as he pushes forward with his contentious plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
But Sharon also risks alienating hard-liners within his Likud Party who oppose a union with the
opposition.
Sharon met opposition leader Shimon Peres privately for one hour yesterday morning. Both sides said the talks had gone well.
"The prime minister turned to Shimon Peres and asked him to open negotiations on Labor joining the government. He asked that they begin as soon as possible," said Yoram Dori, a spokesman for Peres.
Dori said Peres would meet with Labor lawmakers later yesterday to discuss the invitation. The party is scheduled a meeting today, when it is expected to accept the offer.
Officials close to both men said they expected a deal to be reached soon.
Labor lawmaker Haim Ramon said negotiations became a realistic option after three conditions were met: Sharon's government accepted the Gaza withdrawal plan, the ultranationalist National Union left the coalition in protest of the planned pullout and the attorney general decided not to charge Sharon in a corruption case.
"Those were the conditions and now we will open negotiations on a range of issues," he told Israel Radio.
Sharon has turned to Labor after facing increasing opposition to his Gaza plan from far-right coalition partners and hard-liners in his own party. Defections from the government have left him as leader of a fragile minority coalition.
By September next year, the prime minister plans to withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip, where 7,500 Jewish settlers live amid 1.3 million Palestinians, and uproot four isolated settlements in the West Bank.
The withdrawals are part of his "unilateral disengagement" plan, which Sharon says will reduce friction with the Palestinians and boost Israel's securit; he refuses to negotiate directly with the Palestinians.
In a recent interview, Peres said he would not join the government unless Sharon agrees to resume talks with the Palestinians and to commit to a much larger withdrawal from the West Bank.
But the two men are likely to resolve their difference.
Peres, a Nobel peace laureate and a former prime minister now in his 80s, is widely believed to want to return to a position of power.
Sharon has few options as he tries to carry out his plan. Without Labor, his fragile coalition faces a strong risk of collapse.
But Sharon also faces opposition to the move from within his Likud Party. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed concern that Labor would hamper his economic reforms and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom could lose his post to Peres.
Addressing a Likud rally on Sunday, Uzi Cohen, a member of the powerful Likud Central Committee, warned Sharon against bringing Labor into the coalition.
"If the Labor party enters the coalition it will bring a cancer into the Likud. Whoever harms Silvan will face the third world war," Cohen said.
The Israeli media speculated yesterday that Sharon would offer Labor a relatively large number of Cabinet posts to entice Peres to give up the foreign post.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in