Squaring circles
Ariel Sharon this week formed a surprise government of the far right and "secular" centre. It is a measure of his political confidence, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem
Confounding most predictions, Israel's prime minister elect, Ariel Sharon has managed to put together a new government at least three weeks ahead of deadline. Following agreements this week with the pro-settler National Religious Party (NRP), the secularist Shinnui Party and the far-right National Union (NU) bloc, Sharon's Likud Party now leads a 68-seat majority government in the 120-member Knesset. Aggressively nationalist, unashamedly Ashkenazi, "this will be the most right-wing government in Israeli history," predicted Ophir Pines-Paz, secretary-general of the main opposition Labour Party.
The new government swiftly coalesced once two political facts became clear. One was Sharon's failure to reconstitute his preferred National Unity government on the same vague bases that had lured in Labour after Israel's 2001 prime ministerial elections. This time round Labour leader Avram Mitzna wanted written pledges from Sharon that he was committed to a Palestinian state, a freeze on settlement construction, and the dismantling of outpost settlements in the occupied territories. Sharon refused to give them, arguing such vows would rule out other prospective coalition parties like the NRP. Labour said the choice was clear and Sharon had made it.
"Those who intend to reach a peace agreement must make clear how they intend to do so," said Mitzna. "They cannot hide behind promises for 'painful concessions' that nobody knows how painful they will be. Those who plan to make peace should have preferred a coalition with the Labour Party and not the NRP".
The second fact was Sharon's decision to ditch Likud's alliance with ultra-orthodox parties like the Sephardi Shas movement in favour of a new bloc with the anti-clericalist Shinnui. The logic here appears to be to reinforce Sharon's popularity among Israel's Ashkenazi middle-class whose hostility to Israel's orthodox religious establishment (and particularly Shas) delivered Shinnui 15 seats in the elections last month. Allied with the settler and right-wing constituencies represented by the NRP and NU, Sharon hopes Shinnui's participation in government will grant him peace and popularity at home.
But the three parties would seem to be on collision course with each other vis-à-vis American foreign policy, and particularly George Bush's "vision" of a Palestinian state "living side by side with Israel" by the year 2005.
Both the NRP and NU are opposed to a Palestinian state and ideologically committed to the vision of a Greater Israel stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. They are also against the US diplomatic "roadmap" for realising Bush's vision. Indeed, the two parties predicated their participation in government on a promise from Sharon that he would subject any return to political negotiations with the Palestinians to a cabinet decision, on the understanding that both would vote against.
On the other hand Shinnui -- which ultimately wants Israel's "separation" from Gaza and most of the West Bank -- conditioned its participation in the coalition on a letter from Sharon reaffirming his commitment to Bush's "roadmap" to peace as unveiled in his speech on 24 June 2002.
How can these two commitments be squared? The short answer is that they can't: they can only be indefinitely delayed, which appears to Sharon's diplomatic game plan for his second term of office no less than it was for his first.
In his letter to Shinnui he said his government was "conducting a broad range of talks with President Bush's administration for implementing the roadmap". But "Israel has many reservations and revisions to the draft ... presented to us by the American administration". Only when a "full agreement is reached between Israel and the US will the agreement be brought before the [Israeli] government for approval".
The aim clearly is for Sharon to shore up the "reservations and revisions" that the approval never need come and his rightist-secular coalition can remain intact. In the meantime he will keep Shinnui on board by giving it the Interior and Justice ministries to further its struggle against the "religious coercion" exercised by the ultra-orthodox. And he will keep the NRP and NU sweet through giving them the Housing and Transport ministries, both important resources for deepening Israel's colonisation of the occupied territories.
The only snag in Sharon's strategy is if the Americans were to demand movement on the roadmap in return, say, for Israel's request for $12 billion in aid and loans to steer it out of its economic crisis. It is a measure of Sharon's confidence in forming his coalition so quickly that he clearly does not expect that American demand to come, either now or the day after Iraq.
