OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 3 November — After the breakup of Israel’s coalition government, the hawkish Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon was yesterday battling to stabilize his minority government. He was due to begin coalition negotiations today with the far-right grouping “National Union — Our House of Israel”. Together, the coalition would have 63 of the 120 votes in Parliament.
Sharon also intended to meet the former Israeli Premier, Benjamin Netanyahu today. Israel Army Radio reported that Netanyahu was likely to reject Sharon’s offer to take over as foreign minister, a post vacated by Shimon Peres when the Labour Party pulled out of the coalition government last Wednesday. Former army chief Gen. Shaul Mofaz last night accepted the post of defense minister vacated by Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Meanwhile, a top Palestinian Authority official said yesterday the Middle East peace process would pay a heavy price if Sharon forms an extreme right-wing government. “Israel is about to form the most extremist government in its history,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told a news conference at a seminar on the Spanish island of Majorca. “I’m afraid the price will be at the expense of the peace process, at the expense of the Palestinian people. It will mean more settlement activity, more land confiscation,” he said.
Erekat said he would not be surprised if Sharon took advantage of a possible US attack on Iraq to fully reoccupy the Gaza Strip and West Bank, destroy the Palestinian Authority and physically harm Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. He said Israelis and Palestinians needed the help of a third party more than ever before and also called for the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations to put monitors on the ground in the region.
In another development, the Israeli Army said it detained six Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday in its hunt for activists while Palestinian sources said a security official had also been picked up. PA intelligence officer Ismail Aref, 30, a member of Arafat’s Fatah party, was arrested early yesterday by Israeli troops at his home in the village of Deir Ammar west of Ramallah, security sources said.
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli soldiers detained two men, including a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
