Outgoing Israeli premier Ehud Barak renounced Tuesday plans to become defense minister in the national unity government being put together by Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, apparently bowing to criticism from within his own Labor party, said reports.
Barak also confirmed that he would give up his parliamentary seat and his leadership of the Labor party, which will undoubtedly turn up the heat in the race to succeed him at the party's helm, said Haaretz newspaper.
All that places a new question mark on whether Sharon will now be able to make a deal with Labor, which is divided over the issue.
According to the paper, Barak's withdrawal from the fray opens the way for Labor to join Sharon in a unity government.
The senior Labor minister, presumably, will now be the elder statesman Shimon Peres.
However, the party will immediately begin girding itself for a leadership primary race, with Avraham Burg and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer already announced as official candidates and other key party figures weighing their prospects, added the paper.
Barak had surprised and angered many in the party in recent days by backtracking on his election night resignation and insisting on leading the party into a unity government. He warned that if he were not minister of defense there would be no unity government.
The opposition to his "zig-zag" encompassed both pro- and anti-unity forces in the party. Influential figures outside politics, such as Hebrew University savant Shlomo Avineri, accused the prime minister of compromising fundamental ethics in politics with his backtracking, according to Haaretz.
Barak sent a letter to Sharon saying "in the wake of your victory, I decided on the night of the elections to quit after the establishment of a new government, from the Knesset and my role as chair of the party.”
I reconsidered my decision since you initiated the subject of a national unity government to include Labor, and asked me personally to serve as defense minister, and because the security situation is difficult, said the letter, quoted by Haaretz.
"I agreed to your request to serve as defense minister, fully aware in advance of the personal and public price involved in such a commitment. I did not ask for anything for myself but assumed you would behave with mutual respect,” Barak said, adding “but a cursory glance at the headlines of the newspaper in the last few days reveals your attitude to working together, and your preference for the identity of the defense minister to remain open, seriously harmed the trust between us and does not allow me to accept the job.”
Minister Haim Ramon, one of Barak's most implacable party rivals, delivered a blistering attack on the prime minister on Channel One TV, added the paper.
"I don't believe anything he says, even when he makes ostensibly factual reports," Ramon was quoted as saying.
He accused Barak of deliberately misrepresenting the tenor of the coalition negotiations in his reports to the Labor Party leadership.
If Labour does not join a broad left-right coalition, Likud will have to try to form a narrow 66-seat alliance in the 120-member Knesset with far right-wing and religious parties.
Sharon had appointments Tuesday with Nathan Sharansky, head of the Russian immigrant party Israel B'Aliya, Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right Israel Beiteinu and Rehavam Zeevi of National Unity, said AFP.
Prior to Barak's announcement, Likud and Labor negotiators held a further round of talks Tuesday but had not resolved all the outstanding issues, said Labor secretary general Raanan Cohen.
"There are still a number of important issues (still unresolved)," he said, including the number of Labor ministers, a controversial bill on dropping the exemption of military service for religious students and the question of who may be other possible partners in the coalition.
But his opposite number in the Likud, Uri Shani, was more optimistic, saying: "It's almost over," said AFP.
Under a timetable laid down in Israel's election law, Sharon faces an end- of-March deadline to form a new government, which must also have the votes in parliament to approve the state budget for 2001 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
