Sharon Enlists Barak as His Defense Minister

On a day full of funerals, Israel’s prime minister-elect and the man he trounced at the polls agreed in principle late Thursday to join forces in a coalition government that will immediately face the prospect of a widening guerrilla-style war with Palestinians.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to enter the government of hawkish Ariel Sharon as his defense minister, Israeli radio and television reported, concluding intense negotiations that began after the Feb. 6 election.

Barak’s office said the formation of a so-called unity government including Barak’s leftist Labor Party and Sharon’s right-wing Likud Party was conditional on resolving several minor points. Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said the deal was all but done.

Agreement came as the crisis in the Middle East entered a new phase, with renewed violence in the region spiraling out of control and an ever deeper sense of despair and anger hardening among both Israelis and Palestinians.

Under rainy skies Thursday, families buried most of the eight young Israelis killed a day earlier by a Palestinian bus driver who slammed into a crowd at a bus stop near Tel Aviv, in the deadliest attack on Israelis in nearly four years. A Palestinian policeman trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, the army said, and violence raged around Jerusalem and in the West Bank and Gaza.

The deteriorating security situation helped propel Sharon and Barak toward the coalition agreement, which must be approved by their parties. Opposition in the Labor Party will be especially strong.

Sharon had wooed Labor to his administration to give the future government a more moderate image and to shoulder the burden of fighting a nearly 5-month-old Palestinian uprising that in recent days has surged to its most violent level in weeks.

But the sober reality is that even with Barak and Labor’s elder statesman, Shimon Peres, joining Sharon, the options facing the government are few as Israelis and Palestinians alike brace for worse to come.

Under Sharon’s government, the pursuit of peace--if peace is pursued at all--will be limited and phased, Sharon and his aides say. Reaching a comprehensive settlement is no longer part of the vocabulary.

Battling what is increasingly a guerrilla conflict is difficult for a conventional, if formidable, army such as Israel’s. The conflict has become what one analyst called an asymmetrical war, one in which the goals and front lines are murky.

“It’s a war in which there is no military victory, certainly not easy and swift,” Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Thursday.

In addition to returning to a policy of assassinating select Palestinian militant leaders, Israeli forces are building new fortifications along potential flash points, increasing the number of days of reserve duty and asking for a bigger budget.

“The status quo is beginning to be too high a price to pay,” said Dan Meridor, a centrist legislator who is expected to join the new government. “The pretty dream [of reaching peace] that we were all raised by and educated for will not come to life in today’s reality.”

Taking advantage of the vacuum created by the transition from one prime minister to another, Palestinians stepped up their shooting attacks on settlements, soldiers and motorists. Including Wednesday’s victims, 12 Israelis have been killed in the first 15 days of the month.

The message to Sharon, according to Palestinian analysts, was both a warning of what lies ahead and a “you-don’t-scare-us” statement. Israeli officials are of mixed minds as to whether Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat remains in full control of the security forces and armed militias operating in Palestinian territories, but they hold Arafat ultimately responsible.

Arafat, speaking Thursday in Gaza, blamed Israel for the escalation.

The bus attack, carried out by a Palestinian who had passed Israeli security clearances, was especially terrifying for Israelis. The deaths occurred inside Israel proper and despite the safety measures that Israelis rely on. Thousands of Palestinians work in Israel, legally and illegally, in omnipresent, mostly menial jobs.

The message from Gaza, the bus driver’s home region, was clear. He acted not as an Islamic radical but as the Palestinian everyman. Like all Palestinians, his family and friends said, he was outraged at the killings of so many Palestinians and the widening impoverishment caused by Israeli sanctions.

“We are sad and proud,” the driver’s wife said. “Sad because we may never see him again. Proud because he killed Israelis, who are killing our people.”

Thursday’s front page of the top-selling Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, was a speakers corner of debate over whether peace with the Palestinians is even possible.

“Another morning dawns on the pain and the unbearable reality,” wrote leading leftist politician Yossi Sarid. “The frustration is most bitter particularly now, because only one week ago, during the election campaign, the illusion was planted yet again that soon the [army] would be allowed to win the battle. But the [army] cannot win this battle.

“Let’s say we’ve flattened the first row of houses in [the Palestinian towns of] Beit Jala or Ramallah--will the terrorism stop? Let’s say we’ve assassinated Palestinian Authority officials--will the terrorism stop? Let’s say we even capture Gaza tomorrow. Will there not be any terror attacks then?”

Rehavam Zeevi, an extreme right-wing member of parliament and close associate of Sharon, countered: “A viper is a viper, and Yasser Arafat is a viper, and it is impossible to change him. . . . If he sticks out his poisonous tongue, a hammer will be waiting to strike him. . . . A viper can strike even if you don’t stretch out a hand to him, but he can’t strike if you strike him first and drive him away.”

Palestinian officials Thursday blasted the idea of Barak as Sharon’s defense minister. Barak is widely seen here as having flubbed peace negotiations and management of the uprising.

“This is a continuation of the policy of iron fist in which Barak was a failure during his premier post,” said Nabil Amr, a minister in Arafat’s Cabinet. “It is also an attempt by Barak to punish the Palestinians because he thinks that they are responsible for his failure in elections. He tries to demand another opportunity to curb the intifada.”

Barak, who lost to Sharon by the widest margin in Israeli history, greeted his downfall with the announcement that he was quitting politics, at least temporarily. In fact, he has not stepped aside and instead has headed the coalition negotiations, much to the ire of his Labor Party associates.

Barak is probably calculating that staying in Sharon’s government is his best, perhaps only, chance of a political comeback, analysts say. Most of Labor had turned against him.

Peres is expected to be given the foreign affairs portfolio in the Sharon Cabinet.