Sharon seeks to bolster coalition

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked the moderate Labor Party to join his shaky coalition Monday, an alliance that would strongly boost chances for withdrawal from the Gaza Strip next year.

Sharon warned hard-liners in his Likud Party, who oppose a partnership with Labor and a Gaza pullout, that he will call early elections if they stand in his way.

The prime minister and Labor leader Shimon Peres met for an hour Monday. Their aides said a coalition deal is expected quickly despite possible wrangling over senior Cabinet jobs and Labor’s demands for changes in government policy.

The Labor Party wants to resume contacts with the Palestinians as the withdrawal gets under way, while Sharon insists on a unilateral pullout and refuses to negotiate with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

However, Sharon and Peres – the last two members of Israel’s founding generation still active in politics – are expected to set aside their differences. The 80-year-old Peres, a former prime minister, is seen as eager for a last chance to shape the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Sharon, 76, needs Peres for political survival.

The two were coalition partners for most of Sharon’s first term, starting in 2001, despite many political disagreements. Before their alliance, Peres had negotiated interim peace deals with the Palestinians while Sharon had championed expansion of Jewish settlements as a way of preventing Palestinian statehood.

Labor legislators said Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal plan makes it possible for the moderate Labor Party to join what started out as a center-right coalition in 2003; some of the coalition hard-liners have since quit over the proposed pullback.

Sharon wants to withdraw from all of Gaza, where 7,500 Jewish settlers live among 1.3 million Palestinians, and uproot four isolated Israeli settlements in the West Bank by September 2005.

The withdrawals are part of his “unilateral disengagement” plan, which he says would boost Israel’s security and reduce friction with the Palestinians. Sharon has refused to negotiate directly with the Palestinians.

Peres said Monday that a Likud-Labor government must resume contacts with the Palestinians. He said Israel could start withdrawing unilaterally, “but when it comes to implementation, we need another side.”

However, he said, Sharon agreed only to limited cooperation with the Palestinians at the level of field commanders.

The Labor Party is expected to accept Sharon’s coalition invitation today, setting the stage for formal negotiations.