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Sharon fights to lure Labour into coalition

Likud leader needs support of party he thrashed to gain $12bn in American aid

Justin Huggler
Sunday 02 February 2003 01:00 GMT
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Despite trouncing Israel's opposition Labour Party in last week's elections, Ariel Sharon was still trying at the weekend to entice the party into his coalition government. Its participation may be vital to the $12bn (£7.3bn) in additional aid Israel is desperately seeking from the US.

After two years of the Palestinian intifada, Israel's economy is in crisis. Tourism has collapsed, foreign investors are wary, and Mr Sharon's hardline military policies have drained the treasury. The $12bn – $4bn in direct aid and $8bn in loan guarantees – is on top of $3bn it receives from the US every year.

No one wins an outright majority under Israel's pure proportional representation system, and though Mr Sharon gained an overwhelming mandate from voters, he still needs coalition partners. There is no shortage of far-right and religious parties eager to make up the majority, but Mr Sharon said on election night he would call fresh elections rather than form a government with the far right.

US President George Bush has called for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a "two-state solution", and Mr Sharon supports the idea – even if the Palestinian state is so limited it will not satisfy Palestinian aspirations. But the far right is fiercely opposed to a Palestinian state, and would block it in government. That would not go down well in Washington.

The economy is not the only reason Mr Sharon values his relationship with the Bush administration: it is of vital importance to him in the conflict with the Palestinians. Though Mr Sharon may not appear a moderate in European eyes, that is where he has carefully positioned himself in the Israeli political spectrum. He is helped in this by the extreme positions of the far right – one of the three parties that makes up the National Union openly advocates a policy of "transfer", forced expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank.

Mr Sharon does not want to be seen by the outside world as leading an extreme government, preferring to present himself as the statesman balancing the demands of the hardliners in his own Likud Party and the pro-peace Labour Party, as he has for much of the past two years.

But this time Labour is not playing along, insisting instead on remaining in opposition as it rebuilds from a shattering defeat. That is a problem not only for Mr Sharon, but also for the secularist Shinui Party, which staged the major upset of the election, becoming the third biggest party in parliament on a promise to curb the disproportionate power of the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

The massive support Shinui won from Israel's secular majority may be in vain. It has said it will not serve in a government alongside ultra-Orthodox parties, but without Labour it may be impossible to form a coalition which is both acceptable to Shinui and has a majority.

Mr Sharon has six weeks before he has to make up his mind, and gained a little more room for manoeuvre after the last votes to be counted gave the less extreme right-wing parties a couple of extra seats. But he has not yet given up on Labour.

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