Shimon Peres resigned from Israel’s Labour party, his political home for most of the past 60 years, on Wednesday to support the re-election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom he described as providing the best opportunity for peace with the Palestinians.
Peres, a former prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has held every major Cabinet post, said the decision to leave Labour after he was ousted as its leader last month was ”neither simple nor mundane”. But he said he was putting the country above the party in backing Sharon at the general election in March.
”I am asking myself where I can contribute in the years to come, and the answer is in the promotion of the peace process,” said Peres. ”I don’t believe that it is possible to push forward the peace process in the current political constellation. I believe the most qualified person for this is Ariel Sharon. He will restart the peace process right after the election. I decided to join him and work with him.”
Peres’s defection is a coup for Sharon’s attempts to recast himself as having shed his old ideology of creating a greater Israel and as being committed to a negotiated peace with the Palestinians.
But some of Peres’s Labour colleagues have said he is deluded if he believes that Sharon’s plan to impose borders and annex yet more Palestinian land to Israel will end the conflict. Others have suggested he is more interested in power, and remaining in the Cabinet, than the principle involved.
Peres (82) did not discuss the details of his deal with Sharon, but leaks from the prime minister’s office said it is expected the former Labour leader will serve in the Cabinet after the general election in March if the prime minister is returned to power.
Neither did Peres say whether he intends to join Sharon’s new party, Kadima, to seek re-election to Parliament, where he has served an MP since 1959.
Peres said he is confident of Sharon’s commitment to the American-led road-map peace process — even though the Israeli prime minister has said he will refuse to begin negotiations until there is a complete end to ”Palestinian terror”.
”In my conversation with Sharon, we explored the possibility of expanding the scope of peace and the road map. In addition to the road map, we will work to create an economic triangle of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians that may enjoy a special status in the European Union,” said Peres.
Peres said he had too many differences with his old party, now led by a trade unionist, Amir Peretz, who has long called for the creation of a Palestinian state and criticised the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. But he did not immediately say what the differences were.
However, hours earlier the former Labour foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami accused Peres of being unwilling to accept that ”things are happening without him” in the wake of him losing the Labour leadership contest.
”It’s like an arrow to his heart … if he had won the public knows full well everything would have continued as usual … but now things are happening — that I hope will revolutionise the political map. That is what is difficult for him,” he said.
Peres’s announcement came on the day opinion polls showed Sharon’s new party gaining in strength, mostly at the expense of the Likud party he quit a fortnight ago.
The polls show Kadima taking 34 seats in the 120-member Parliament. Labour has 27, also a significant gain. But Sharon’s old party, Likud, is reduced to 10 seats from the present 40. Sharon has been picking up backing from other quarters over recent days — more than 70 mayors from both Labour and Likud have thrown their support behind him. — Guardian Unlimited Â