British Prime Minister Tony Blair landed another blow to his battered relations with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday by welcoming the leader of Israel’s opposition Labour Party to London just three weeks before a general election.
Sharon has already told the British government he considers the invitation to Amram Mitzna interference in Israeli politics and an attempt to boost his opponent’s flagging fortunes.
Relations deteriorated further this week when, in the wake of a devastating dual suicide bombing, Israel’s Security Cabinet banned Palestinian leaders from attending a meeting in London convened by Blair to try to rekindle the peace process.
The British prime minister is still awaiting a reply to his written appeal to Sharon to reverse the decision.
If Israelis vote for what they say they want, Blair would be welcoming Mitzna to his Downing Street office as the next prime minister of Israel instead of facing the prospect of yet more confrontation with the present one.
Opinion polls show that most Israelis agree with Mitzna when he pledges to pull troops out of the West Bank within a year, shut Jewish settlements and unilaterally separate Israel from the Palestinians. However, that is not what Israelis say they will vote for on January 28.
Mitzna has led Labour firmly back into the peace camp only to discover that the voters either do not trust him to carry through his policies without endangering their security, or equate a unilateral withdrawal with surrender. They see pulling out of the West Bank as ”rewarding terrorism’’.
The Israeli Labour leader has even failed to capitalise on the growing financial scandal enveloping Sharon, his family and his party. Voters are fleeing Likud, but to other parties on the right that will help keep Sharon in power, or to populist politicians of the centre.
But the fact remains that Mitzna will exercise a profound influence on the future governance of Israel, and Blair does have a very real interest in the fate of his fellow Labour leader.
”Blair has a lot to talk to Mitzna about,’’ said Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Mitzna may not win but he has to decide whether to join Sharon in a unity government that will have a very big impact on the policies Sharon pursues. Blair has an interest in that decision.’’
Mitzna’s manifesto sits well with Downing Street in comparison with Sharon’s grinding subversion of a peace deal.
”As soon as I am elected, I will pull out of Gaza, leave Hebron and get this fence against terror built. Sharon can’t do it because Sharon is too attached to the settlements he built,’’ Mitzna says.
The Labour leader pledges immediate negotiations with the Palestinians, without preconditions. If the talks are not making progress after a year, he will unilaterally withdraw all Israeli forces from Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
He would force the closure of smaller and illegal Jewish outposts but draw a line of control around long-established settlements that would become a border in the absence of a political settlement and effectively extend Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank.
”We are going to separate from the Palestinians. Period. If they want to, we will do it through an agreement. If that does not work, we will separate in a unilateral move. And if they continue with terror, we will clobber them,’’ Mitzna said.
Close to 70% of Israelis support Mitzna’s policy of unilateral separation from the Palestinians. Yet they do not appear ready yet to negotiate with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. — Â