LAST-MINUTE efforts were underway on Sunday to find a compromise between rival factions in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s right-wing Likud party ahead of a controversial vote to block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Likud Central Committee, the body which elects the parliamentary list, was to meet on Sunday evening in Tel Aviv to debate an agenda which includes a move to vote down a Palestinian state.
For Sharon, it was a meeting he would rather avoid. Such a resolution would mean certain political embarrassment, flying directly in the face of statements he has made cautiously endorsing a Palestinian state, and tying his hands in future negotiations.
The resolution was first proposed last September, after Sharon angered party members by issuing a statement saying Israel wanted to give the Palestinians ”the possibility of establishing a state”.
In revolt against Sharon’s unprecedented statement, considered the strongest indication yet by a Likud prime minister of accepting Palestinian statehood, party members proposed the current resolution.
The outcome of the vote is crucial for the party. If the resolution is passed, it will require all Likud representatives in the government to foil any political move that might lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported last week.
Such a resolution is intended to establish a binding principle and to be permanent, the paper said.
In a move to head off such a restriction, Sharon aides have been working around the clock to either prevent the vote or to find a compromise, arguing that adoption of the resolution would both undermine Sharon while inflicting political damage on Israel.
Heading up the opposition to prevent the Likud from supporting a Palestinian state is right-wing deputy Eli Cohen, the chairman of the Forum to Preserve the Principles of the Likud.
”An independent Palestinian entity west of the Jordan River would pose a danger to the continued existence of the Jewish people,” Cohen said in a statement.
”We are here to support the prime minister, not to abandon him. We want to build a wall around him that will not permit compromise,” he said.
Sharon’s political rival, former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who according to media reports is backed by many in the 2 660-member central committee, looked set to favour a compromise proposal brokered by Education Minister Limor Livnat.
Under the proposal, the committee would ratify the Likud’s political platform, which rules out a Palestinian state but favours granting the Palestinians autonomy.
Likud sources close to Netanyahu, quoted by English-language daily The Jerusalem Post, said it would not be in Netanyahu’s interest to have the resolution heard ”because he may need to compromise with the Palestinian Authority if he returns to the premiership”.
Sharon’s camp was still undecided on whether or not to support Livnat’s proposal, which in essence, reaffirms there would be no Palestinian state.
Despite the ferocity of the debate, analyst Zeev Maoz, head of the school of government and policy at Tel Aviv University was not convinced the outcome would have national implications.
”If they pass the resolution, Sharon will have significant problems in his party when it comes to the primaries in 2003. Beyond that, this resolution is in no way binding because the government operates on its own as a coalition,” he said.
If Sharon manages to successfully avoid the vote against a Palestinian state, the implications are likely to have more international significance, he said.
”If it doesn’t go through, Sharon will have won a major battle against Netanyahu within his own party and it will probably provide a significant indicator to the Arab states that Israel is serious about establishing a Palestinian state.”
Not everyone was so optimistic.
”The resolution being put on the Likud’s discussion table tonight would bind the hands of the party’s leaders for generations to come. Whoever adopts this position proposes just two solutions to the Palestinian problem: transfer, or apartheid,” wrote
columnist Uzi Benziman in an editorial in Sunday’s Haaretz. – Sapa-AFP