Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak won a political lifeline from a powerful religious party after efforts collapsed to forge an alliance with the right-wing Likud, which pledged Tuesday to try to topple Barak's ailing government.
Barak's government, which has been on a knife's edge for three months, was given a reprieve after the opening of the winter parliamentary session Monday by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, which said it would give Barak its support for four weeks as the violence in the Palestinian territories rages on.
It followed the failure of efforts to form a national emergency government with hawkish Likud leader Ariel Sharon, who is opposed to any resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians with the ongoing unrest and has vowed to work to topple Barak.
But Shas political leader Eli Yishai, whose party bolted the Labor-led coalition in July over Barak's efforts to make peace with the Palestinians at the Camp David summit, warned Tuesday that its support was not ironclad.
"We will immediately withdraw the four-week safety net we have granted the prime minister if he goes to the United States to resume negotiations on the basis of the Camp David arrangements," Yishai told public radio.
The summit broke down over the key issue of control over east Jerusalem and its holy sites, although press reports here say Barak was prepared to give the Palestinians shared sovereignty over some areas of the Arab part of the city and withdraw from most of the West Bank.
"The Camp David arrangements are dead and the Oslo peace process is dead and those who say differently are speaking rubbish," said Yishai, whose party has a key 17-member bloc in Israel's 120-member parliament.
Yishai was referring to the seven-year Oslo peace process that Barak has unilaterally suspended because of the violence in the Palestinian territories that has so far claimed the lives of more than 150 people, most of them Arabs.
Barak has just 30 seats in parliament but without Shas the opposition cannot muster the necessary support for any moves to topple the government.
And dovish Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, staunchly opposed to the inclusion of Sharon in the government, backed the new political environment.
"The Shas safety-net will enable us to have more room for maneuver on the peace process than a government with Ariel Sharon," he told public radio.
The Palestinians have warned that the inclusion of Sharon, whom they blame for sparking the current wave of violence by his provocative visit to a disputed east Jerusalem holy place on September 28, would mean the complete end of the peace process.
Sharon is reviled by Arabs for the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, carried out by pro-Israeli militias while Sharon was defense minister.
Sharon said Tuesday: "We are going to do everything to bring down the government."
"The prime minister's credibility is in doubt because he has snubbed the state of Israel by refusing to promote the unity of the Jewish people, which is vital to confront the war of attrition waged by Yasser Arafat."
Negotiations with Likud, which has 19 parliamentary seats, stumbled over Sharon's demand for a veto on peace and security matters, particularly any resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
