RAMALLAH, 29 October — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat both faced a political crunch yesterday as Israel’s Labor party inched closer to wrecking Sharon’s coalition, while Arafat had to persuade the Palestinian Parliament to accept his new Cabinet.
Labor leader and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer has until tomorrow, when the budget goes to vote in Parliament, to either reach a compromise or see the coalition crumble.
The collapse would precipitate elections within 90 days, some nine months before they are due, and throw both Sharon and Ben Eliezer into battles for their respective party’s leadership.
Labor’s left wing has been voicing increasing concern that the party remains in bed with Sharon and ultranationalist ministers in a tough policy that has left the West Bank almost entirely occupied for four months and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in increasing penury.
As Sharon invoked the need for "national unity" to plot a steady course for his government, a few miles to the north Ramallah, Arafat was facing a possible revolt by the Palestinian Parliament, dominated by his own Fatah party.
He was due to present his new Cabinet to the Palestinian Legislative Council, which last month forced a previous reshuffled line-up to quit, criticizing Arafat for doing too little to root out endemic corruption and mismanagement. Arafat was let off the hook that time by an Israeli Army siege of his headquarters, which allowed him to delay any decision by an extra month, giving him extra time to negotiate further reshuffles with Fatah.
The faction has secured a promise that one of its top members, Hani Al-Hassan, will take the key post of interior minister, but otherwise few major changes were made. However, Fatah officials have said that Arafat was applying heavy pressure on all levels of the party and on other deputies to back his Cabinet, saying a new rejection would constitute a victory for Sharon, who together with Washington wants to see Arafat out.
The session appeared to be in some doubt after Israel again banned 13 members from attending — 11 from Gaza and two from the reoccupied West Bank — citing "security reasons."
Israel did the same thing at the September session, forcing the assembly to meet by video link-up between Ramallah and Gaza City.
As in September, Gaza deputies said they would not go to Ramallah in a show of solidarity with their banned colleagues, accused by Israel of complicity in unspecified "terrorist" activities.
