Right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had to renounce concessions he offered the Palestinians at Camp David before a national emergency coalition could be formed.
Barak faces a vote of no confidence when parliament resumes in a week's time unless he can woo Sharon's Likud and other opposition parties into a coalition with his Labour Party.
"I am ready for an emergency government immediately, but Barak has to renounce the Camp David agreement," Sharon said on public radio Sunday. "He is trying to travel in two trains, both going in opposite directions."
According to public radio, eight of the 19 Likud members of parliament are opposed to forming a coalition government with Labour.
"The declaration by the prime minister of a 'pause' (in the peace process) is not sufficient," Sharon told the radio. "It is necessary to get rid of the illusions of Camp David."
One of Barak's offers at the failed July summit was to give the Palestinians some sovereignty in Jerusalem, heresy to Israel's right wing.
Sharon has said he wants Barak to renounce all the compromises he offered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Barak has said the Camp David proposals do not necessarily still stand, but has not rejected them outright.
Barak said Friday after a day in which nine Palestinians were killed that Israel would call an indefinite time-out in the peace process unless the Palestinians put an end to more than three weeks of violence by the time the Arab summit in Cairo closed Sunday.
The announcement came just days after an agreement between Barak and Arafat brokered by the United States at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh -- to which Sharon was strenuously opposed.
Both parties agreed to take steps to end the violence in which more than 120 people have died and close to 4,000 -- mostly Palestinians -- have been injured, but so far without result.
Analysts said Barak's threat to withdraw Israel indefinitely from the peace process showed he considered the process already dead and sees no option but an emergency government with the right.
His decision to call a "pause" in the seven-year peace process, they said, was an attempt to win support from Sharon, with whom he held talks on Friday before going on television to make his announcement.
Sharon, according to the radio, has proposed as an alternative to the Sharm el-Sheikh accord the conclusion of long-term agreements with Arafat that would secure the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Analysts believe should Barak be forced into an election, he would likely lose due to a strong shift to the right of Israeli public opinion in reaction to the Palestinian uprising.
In a bid to head off the vote of no confidence, Barak has also met with the head of the powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, Eli Yishai, who quit the Labour-led coalition government in July in protest of the Camp David talks – JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
