Sharon, the King of Israel

By Graham Usher
On Tuesday afternoon Likud Party Secretary Ruby Rivlin officially submitted coalition agreements for a National Unity government to the Knesset secretary. As presently constituted, the coalition comprises six parties, commanding 73 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, who was due to formally present his government to the house on Wednesday night, will become prime minister proper by Saturday evening, or immediately after the Jewish holiday of Purim.
Sharon's road to national unity was smoothed less by his pact with the Labour Party -- which had largely been a done deal even before the prime ministerial election on 6 February -- than by the agreement initialled between his party and the Shas movement on Sunday night. Preserving a reputation as the true king makers of Israeli politics, Shas delivered Sharon the chair he craved because "we got everything we had fought over with the Barak government," commented Shas political leader, Eli Yishai.
Among other goodies, these include the ministries of Interior, Religious Affairs and Jerusalem as well as a deputy minister in Education, which grants Shas control over its Sephardi orthodox school system. Shas, of course, was the party that thwarted Binyamin Netanyahu's desire to have full Knesset elections last month by conniving with Sharon and Ehud Barak to stage only a prime ministerial contest. Given the prizes it has now won, it has become clear why it did so.
The only hitch in the coalition talks was Sharon's failure (or success) in not recruiting to his ranks two parties that have given him fulsome support in the past -- the pro-settler National Religious Party and former Foreign Minister David Levy's Gesher faction. Both, it seems, fell foul of the sin of hubris.
The NRP lost its cherished Housing Ministry (which dispenses largesse and building permits to the settlements) to the Russian Yisrael Baliyya party due to a squabble with Shas over control of the Religious Affairs Ministry. And Levy discovered that even a cabinet with 28 ministries was not large enough to afford him a portfolio commensurate with his status. Rather than let Sharon consign him to oblivion, Levy decided to walk to oblivion himself.
The only surprise was Sharon's appointment to his cabinet of Labour member Salah Tarif, the first Arab to hold a ministerial post in the 52-year history of the Jewish state. But the surprise was more manufactured than real. Unlike Barak, neither Sharon nor Likud have a problem with an Arab minister as long as he is a Druze and loyal. Tarif is both.
As for the formal opposition, this consists of the 11-member Meretz bloc, the five Arab lists and, at least on matters to do with religion and state, the secularist Shinnui party. The real opposition, however, lies gestating in the corpse of what was the Labour Party and is now Sharon's senior partner in government.
That this is so is because with the exception of Shimon Peres (who will be foreign minister in any coalition that will have him), the rest of Labour's five ministers are what Israel's Haaretz newspaper politely described as "second string." The first string is all outside the government and united only in its ambition to bring the coalition down and force general elections at the earliest opportunity.
These include Labour party leader contenders Avraham Burg and Shlomo Ben-Ami, Barak's public executioner Haim Ramon and architect of both the Oslo accords and Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, Yossi Beilin. Indeed it was Beilin -- who is now no longer even a member of Knesset -- who struck the first blow in the sedition by formally announcing his candidacy on Tuesday to become acting chairman of the Labour Party. From there he will attempt to steer Labour out of government and into power, and enter into battle with his mentor, Peres. If this comes to pass, it will truly be a case of the apprentice rebelling against the sorcerer.
But this is for the future. For now, Sharon's only real opposition comes from the nation his state is occupying beyond the Green Line and excluding within it. It is this struggle that will determine the longevity or otherwise of the Sharon government. And, 19 years after he fell from grace for his role in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, that battle is about to be rejoined. (see p.4)
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