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Sharon to Form Right-Wing Cabinet, Mofaz New Defense Minister
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| Sharon
surrounded by Orthodox KMs following the Knesset vote on
budget
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon started talks Thursday, October 31, to form a
right-wing government as he sought to avoid early elections, the day
after the Labor party bolted his cabinet.
Israel was almost certain to lurch rightward as Sharon courted
ultra-nationalist and pro-settler parties to join his cabinet, to thwart
the centre-left Labor party's attempt to trigger new elections by the
spring, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The Prime Minister will be busy today with a series of contacts to
form a stable new government and a majority in the parliament,"
Sharon's cabinet secretary Gideon Saar told Israeli public radio.
"The majority of parliament members do not want elections," he
added.
Sharon, the burly former general, seemed determined to stay the course,
after Labor leader and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer quit the
country's 20-month national unity government Wednesday, October 30, over
a budget row.
Within
this context, Israel's tough former chief of staff, Shaul Mofaz,
accepted Thursday, October 31, the post of Defense Minister offered by
Sharon after Labor quit his national unity government, a government
official said.
"Shaul Mofaz has accepted to become the next Defense Minister as he
was asked by the Prime Minister," the official said on condition of
anonymity, according to AFP.
According to Israel's Public Radio Thursday, Sharon planned to tap Mofaz
as the new Defense Minister after the collapse of his government
coalition.
The hawkish Mofaz quickly flew back from London for consultations with
the right-wing Sharon.
Ben
Eliezer and his fellow Labor members resigned after last-minute talks
with Sharon failed to reach a compromise over Israel's 2003 austerity
budget that angered Labor with its high subsidies allotted for (illegal)
Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The row was largely viewed as a ploy by Ben Eliezer to earn his stripes
with his party's dovish wing ahead of a November 19 primary for Labor's
leadership mantle.
However, Sharon clearly wished to fend off his rival's maneuver to call
a national election before the end of his term in October 2003.
The specter of Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister and rival
for power in his Likud party, was another factor in Sharon's decision to
delay calling snap elections.
Labor's walkout also granted Sharon the opportunity to press on with his
strong-armed military tactics, hoping to crush the two-year-old
Palestinian Intifada.
Sharon was due to hold talks with MP Avigdor Lieberman, who heads a
far-right coalition, that would land him a 62 seat majority in the
120-member parliament.
Lieberman, a onetime aide to Sharon's Likud rival Netanyahu, vowed
several days ago not to rescue the Prime Minister if Labor quit, but he
was coming under heavy pressure from his own supporters, the radio said.
MP Benny Elon, a leading advocate of deportation for Palestinians and a
partner of Lieberman, relished the idea of joining a far-right Sharon
government.
"Sharon, whose margin of maneuver will no longer be limited by
Labor can carry out the policies he wishes and there is no reason for us
not to enter this government of the right," Elon said.
Sharon asked Labor's senior politician and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
to stay in the government, but he said no, army radio reported.
Ben Eliezer defended his decision to lead Labor out of the cabinet over
the budget which proposed sweeping cuts for the poorest members of the
population while coddling the settlers.
"We were always against the budget and yet we did the impossible
trying to reach a compromise," Ben Eliezer told parliament late
Wednesday.
Despite Labor's revolt, the parliament passed the budget at its first
reading by 67 votes in favor to 45 against.
The White House, for its part, refused to comment on the crisis.
"The United States views the events in Israel as part of Israel's
internal democratic process. And we have no comment beyond that,"
said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
However, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat voiced fears that
Israel was distancing itself further from the elusive quest for peace.
"It appears that the Israeli political class is distancing itself
more and more from the quest for peace," he said.
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