A major hitch remains in forming an Israeli national government between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon, Telecommunications Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said Monday.
Ben Eliezer, who is close to Barak, and Likud MP Meir Sheetrit, were charged by their two leaders to try to find a compromise amid continuing fierce fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the Palestinian territories.
"We have done all we could to draw up a compromise satisfactory to both sides," Ben Eliezer told public radio. "But there is a problem, because Likud wants to disengage from the political process" with the Palestinians.
"We want national union but there is one element missing to realize it: a decision by Mr. Sharon and Mr. Barak," he added.
Talks between the two leaders have broken down over Sharon's demand for a veto on peace and security matters.
Barak has called a 'time out" in the peace process while the present violence persists but does not want to abandon it, while Sharon has accused Barak of being willing to make too many concessions to the Palestinians.
Ben Eliezer also expressed doubts about the reliability of a "safety net" held out by the Orthodox Jewish Shas party, a former component of the Barak government.
Shas, a lynchpin in successive coalitions, has decided to back Barak's minority government from outside to deal with the violence.
"We will support the government during this emergency situation," Eli Yishai, the political leader of Shas, which has 17 MPs, said last week, although the party has rejected an offer to rejoin the government.
"Shas is not convinced that there is an emergency, and what we want is stability to face up to a situation which is obliging us to deploy tanks and respond to Palestinian shooting at Gilo," a Jewish suburb on the fringes of Jerusalem," Ben Eliezer said.
He was speaking hours before the Israeli parliament was due to re-convene for its winter session with a no-confidence motion against the government on the table – JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
