Ariel Sharon’s minority government survived a series of no-confidence votes in the knesset last night, only to be confronted by a fresh challenge that left the hardline administration looking highly unstable.
It clung to office only because a minority party opposed to a Palestinian state abstained from voting while it seeks a pledge from Israel’s prime minister to take his administration further to the right.
The Labour party — which brought about the crisis by walking out of the administration last week — submitted a fresh no-confidence motion following an official report showing that one in five Israelis is living in poverty because of the conflict with the Palestinians. It had some knesset members predicting that early elections are inevitable.
Yesterday’s vote came minutes after a suicide bomber struck the Kfar Saba shopping centre north of Tel Aviv, killing two people and injuring about two dozen others, including several children. One of the dead was believed to be a security guard who prevented the bomber from entering an electrical store. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Earlier in the day, two Palestinians were killed by what was believed to be an Israeli bomb planted in their car in Nablus. Israeli radio said one of the dead men, Mohammed Sadr, was a member of Hamas’s military wing.
The outcome of the three confidence votes in the knesset left Sharon clinging to power by a thread. The closest of them gave the government only 54 votes out of 114, but nine abstentions kept his administration from falling.
It may be only temporary relief. Sharon has spent days trying to persuade the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu party to prop up his administration. Its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, agreed to abstain from yesterday’s vote while he negotiated terms for joining the government.
But it appeared that Lieberman’s two principal demands would not be met. They are that Sharon state publicly there will not be a Palestinian state and that the prime minister commits himself to a far right government after the next election, rather than trying to rebuild a national unity administration with Labour. ”If we help the Likud today in establishing a rightist-nationalist government, I want there to be continuity in this rightist-nationalist government,” Lieberman said. ”Otherwise what’s the point in us keeping this government alive?”
Sharon said he still favours a unity government and that he would not deviate from the assurances he has given the Americans that he accepts there should be a Palestinian state. ”Even in the future, I want to form a national unity government,” he said. But if the prime minister is unable to keep National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu satisfied, his administration could yet fall at the next test of his strength in the knesset after his erstwhile partners in government, the Labour party, submitted a fresh confidence motion.
It came in response to an official report showing that 1,2-million Israelis — almost half of them children — are living below the poverty line because the economy has collapsed since the conflict with the Palestinians resumed two years ago.
The leader of the leftwing Meretz party, Yossi Sarid, predicted that the government’s days are numbered.
”If it doesn’t fall this week, it will fall next week,” he said.
The prime minister was also grappling to put together a new cabinet after rejecting Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand for early elections in return for accepting the foreign ministry portfolio.
Sharon castigated his chief rival for the leadership of the Likud party by saying his demand was
”irresponsible”. The prime minister’s allies say he does not want a ballot before the expected US war on Iraq, even though some of his aides believe an early election would favour him.
”We are standing in fateful times,” Sharon said. ”I said in the past and I haven’t changed my mind that taking this nation to immediate elections would be irresponsible. I hope everyone acts responsibly and doesn’t try to make it difficult for a stable government to function.” – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001