JERUSALEM, 14 November 2005 — The leader of Israel’s Labor party has threatened to back a bill to dissolve Parliament, cranking up the pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to agree to talks on calling early elections.
“I have no intention of letting Sharon play the political scene as if it were his private hunting ground. With all the respect I have for him, this era is over,” Amir Peretz told Israeli television late Saturday.
The 53-year-old Moroccan-born trade union boss, who Thursday ousted Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres in a Labor leadership vote, has vowed to withdraw the center-left party from Sharon’s fragile governing coalition.
Indicative of the crisis, the weekly Cabinet meeting broke up after only 15 minutes and Labor ministers walked out, public radio said. Education Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Sharon’s right-wing Likud party accused Peretz of delivering “demagogic speeches”.
National Religious Party MP Zevulun Orlev will submit a bill to Parliament on Wednesday calling for the dissolution of the house, to which Peretz is threatening to lend Labor’s crucial support.
“I asked him to coordinate his movements with me and he accepted.
“Sharon delayed my planned meeting with him on Sunday until Thursday. It is an irresponsible decision because the Labor party intends to leave the governing coalition and it is better done in a coordinated way,” Peretz said.
According to a breakdown of voting intentions published by the mass selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, 51 MPs plan to vote for the bill with 48 against. Therefore a swing vote among Labor’s 21 deputies would easily tip the balance against Sharon.
If the vote passes, the bill must be approved by a parliamentary legal committee before winning three successive votes in the house.
After that general elections will need to be held between a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of five months.
Political commentators say the new Labor leader is worried that master tactician Sharon is playing for time by delaying talks and waiting for the furor surrounding his shock win over Peres to die down.
If the National Religious Party resolution fails to win the required 61-MP majority in the 120-member Knesset, no similar bill can be submitted for another six months.
“The meeting is urgent. If the bill fails that will mean we’ll enter a period of standstill,” Labor MP Ephraim Sneh told public radio.
Clashes in W. Bank Ahead of Rice Visit
Heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen erupted in the West Bank yesterday, just hours before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to begin a new Middle East peace push.
Around 30 jeeps carrying a large number of Israeli troops pushed into the flashpoint northern West Bank city of Jenin, triggering shootouts between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops, Palestinian sources said.
Troops surrounded an office belonging to Islamic movement Hamas.
The violence flared shortly after a funeral for a militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who was killed by Israeli troops in Jenin overnight.
Rice arrived in Israel yesterday appealing to Israelis and Palestinians to make new efforts to unblock their peace process, still bogged down two months after Israel’s historic pullout from Gaza.
Speaking to reporters en route from Saudi Arabia, Rice said she would use her speech later yesterday to demonstrate that change was taking place rapidly in other parts of the Middle East and Israel and the Palestinians should follow suit.
Rice and Sharon were scheduled to address a dinner organized by an Israeli-US forum late yesterday. Today, she is due to hold talks with Sharon before heading to the West Bank town of Ramallah to meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
US officials have played down chances for any kind of breakthrough on her first visit to the region since the Gaza pullout. She herself has said the trip was designed only to “take the temperature” of the post-Gaza situation.
Rice told reporters on Thursday that she would press Israel to make new conciliatory gestures as she seeks to give a boost to Abbas ahead of crucial Palestinian elections.
Israel is also under pressure from Washington to conclude an agreement on Gaza’s border crossings as quickly as possible in a bid to ignite Palestinian economic life, otherwise in deep malaise.
Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan has lashed out at Israel for “suffocating” the Palestinian economy by dragging its heels over the opening of Gaza’s borders.
Yesterday, Israel announced an easing of travel restrictions to allow 2,000 workers and 1,000 merchants from Gaza to enter and work in the Jewish state.
