The leader of Israel's main right-wing opposition party called Wednesday for early elections, and ruled out the possibility of forming a government of national unity in the wake of the collapse of the Camp David summit.
"Now that the true positions of both sides have been revealed during the summit, we have to hold early elections," Likud party leader Ariel Sharon told Israel public radio.
"Prime Minister Ehud Barak will no longer be able to say in his election campaign that he does not want to divide Jerusalem, that he rejects the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, and that he will not give up the Jordan Valley," Sharon said.
"With red lines like these, I don't think it will be possible to form a government of national unity," he said, referring to the non-negotiable points Barak said he was taking to the Camp David summit, but on which he apparently made some concessions during the talks.
Most commentators have been saying over the past few days that if Camp David failed, Barak could put together a government of national unity.
He lost his majority in parliament on the eve of the summit, after the defection of three right-wing parties from his broad-based coalition, including the ultra-Orthodox Shas, with its 17 deputies, whose support is crucial.
One of Barak's close associates, minister without portfolio Haim Ramon, said Barak would try to re-form his coalition "in order to continue the peace process" when he returned. But Ramon admitted he did not know who the possible partners might be in a future government.
He also came out strongly against the idea of bringing Likud into a national unity government, saying such thing would be "a government of national paralysis for peace."
"If we do not succeed in mobilizing a majority, it would be better to hold early elections," he said.
Parliament speaker Avraham Burg, of Barak's Labour party, said that "the prime minister's priority when he returns will be to find a stable majority."
Barak has already started to prepare the political ground as he returns from the summit. He spoke by phone to Shas leader Eli Yishai, as well as to Tommy Lapid, leader of the secular opposition Shinui, which has six MPs, and Yossi Sarid, head of the left-wing secular Meretz, who left the government earlier in July, but has continued to back it from outside.
Yishai refused to tell public radio what his party intended to do.
"We must study the situation after the failure of the summit, but our return to the government will not be automatic," he said - OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
