OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 22 May — The hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was yesterday facing a meltdown of his ponderous coalition after a revolt by ultra-religious ministers triggered a political showdown over planned budget cuts. Sharon fired four ministers of the powerful religious party Shas late Monday after they voted against austerity measures the government wanted to push through to tackle the economic crisis caused by the conflict with the Palestinians.
The sackings, along with the resignation of a fifth Shas minister in solidarity, left Sharon with just 60 seats in the 120-deputy assembly and facing the possibility of early elections as he struggles to plot a course through the bloody, 20-month Palestinian uprising.
Israeli television said Sharon had given orders that no talks were to be opened with Shas or other parties that could step in to shore up his majority, ordering a showdown with his critics in a new vote scheduled for tonight, when his sackings come into force.
But Israeli Army radio said Sharon had been in indirect contact with Shas’ religious leader in a bid to resolve the coalition crisis. Contact between Sharon and Ovadia Yossef was made through a businessman close to both of them, who took a message from Sharon saying he would be willing to withdraw his dismissal of four Shas ministers if the party agreed to vote through the budget today.
Sources at Shas, quoted by the radio, said they believed Sharon was conducting secret negotiations with the party leadership, but indicated that Shas was unlikely to change its stance on the issue. “There is no reason to be tight-fisted,” Shas parliamentary leader Yair Peretz told army radio. “If they don’t make changes to the (budget) we will vote against (Finance Minister) Sylvan Shalom’s plan,” he threatened.
Shas’ political leader, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, said earlier on public radio he would continue talks to find a way out of the impasse but held out little hope. “We have another few hours of talks to see what will happen. There is no doubt in my mind that the (sacking) decision was a wrong one unless the prime minister wants to go to elections,” he said.
Despite the blow, Shalom said he was sticking by his emergency plan to get Israel out of the dire economic straits it finds itself in, saddled with massive security costs in tackling the Palestinian uprising and the global downturn in key business sectors such as the high-tech industry.
Shalom called on deputies to reconsider their positions at tonight’s revote.
The crisis developed just hours after the Defense Ministry announced plans to speed up a costly project to build a fence between the West Bank and Israel in a bid to stem Palestinian attacks, after two suicide bombers killed themselves and three Israelis in separate attacks within 15 hours.
Violence rumbled on in the Gaza Strip, where a bomb exploded early yesterday in the path of an Israeli convoy, but caused no injuries or damage.
A 17-year-old Palestinian youth was killed after a crowd threw stones and pipe bombs yesterday at Israeli tanks on the edge of the volatile Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and were met with heavy machine gun fire, hospital officials said. They said another six people were wounded by the tank fire.
