Sharon Seeks Alliance With Rival Faction

Inaugurating what could be a tumultuous political courtship, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday asked the left-leaning Labor Party to consider joining his government and helping him realize his plan to relinquish the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control.

Sharon extended the invitation to open formal coalition negotiations in a private hourlong meeting with Shimon Peres, the veteran Labor leader.

The prime minister’s long-expected overture immediately triggered a wave of dissent within his conservative Likud Party. Sharon took a strong-arm approach toward rebels in the party ranks, saying if they did not lend him support, he would call early elections.

The threat of an electoral test carries some weight with Likud hard-liners. They are keenly aware that polls show most Israelis support the prime minister’s initiative to get out of Gaza, and the hard-liners thus have reason to think they might suffer at the voting booth.

Many Laborites also are wary of the prospective alliance. Sharon -- with his trademark willingness to use overwhelming military force against the Palestinians, together with his decades-long role as a driving force behind the Jewish settlement movement -- has long been the bete noire of the Israeli left.

Peres has made it clear he believes Labor should abandon what has been a largely ineffectual role in the opposition and begin wielding the greater influence that would come with being part of the government. Party rivals point out that the 80-year-old Peres has much to gain personally from an alliance with Sharon; he is said to be seeking the prestigious job of foreign minister as part of any coalition accord.

Some of the Likud dissenters’ rhetoric has been notably harsh, a reflection of Israel’s increasingly polarized political climate. Uzi Cohen, a member of the party’s policymaking Central Committee, likened any alliance with Labor to a “cancer.”

Ever since he was dealt a humiliating defeat in early May in a referendum among Likud voters on the Gaza pullout plan, Sharon has been struggling to keep his initiative -- and his government -- afloat.

Beset by right-wing opposition within his Cabinet, he fired the two ministers who objected most vociferously to the plan. But he was nonetheless forced to slow the pullout timetable by agreeing to carry it out in stages.

The prime minister, whose coalition now controls only 59 seats in the 120-member Knesset, is vulnerable every time his opponents put forth a no-confidence motion. That happens every few days, including twice on Monday.

In the odd-bedfellows tradition of Israeli politics, Labor has been supporting Sharon in no-confidence votes having to do with the Gaza plan, while the prime minister’s own ostensible allies have not.

Sharon, speaking to Likud’s parliamentary faction, said this breaking of party ranks had left him with little choice but to turn to Labor.

“Coalition members cannot vote against the government in no-confidence votes,” he said. “This, of course, cannot go on.... If it does, it puts me in a position where I must form another coalition.”

Some of Sharon’s rivals within Likud, however, may feel they have little to lose by doing open battle with the prime minister. Both Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom could face the loss of their portfolios in a Cabinet reshuffle.

Netanyahu in particular has a loyal following among key operatives in Likud’s political machine. His withholding of active support for the Gaza plan is thought to have been a major factor in Sharon’s bruising referendum loss.

Labor and Likud have teamed up in the past, despite personal animosities and sweeping political disagreements. During Sharon’s first term as prime minister, the parties formed a coalition in 2001 and ‘02, but it fell apart amid a dispute over Likud pouring money into Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Labor has long been a proponent of a withdrawal from Gaza, where 7,500 Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded enclaves among 1.3 million Palestinians. But the party believes the overall borders of a future Palestinian state must be decided by negotiations rather than unilateral Israeli actions.

Violence in Gaza has been rising steadily since Sharon unveiled his withdrawal initiative this year. Militant Palestinian groups have redoubled attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlements, seeking to make any pullout seem like a victory for them. Israeli forces, in turn, have been waging a relentless campaign against the leadership structure of organizations such as Hamas, not wanting to leave Gaza with the militant groups in a position of power.

Throughout the fighting, Gaza’s civilians have found themselves caught in the middle. On Monday, Palestinian officials and witnesses reported that a 72-year-old Palestinian man was buried under the rubble of his home as Israeli troops destroyed several structures on the outskirts of the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

Residents said that they tried to halt the demolition and rescue the man, who used a wheelchair, but that the building was knocked down before they could do so.

The army said troops had followed the normal procedure of checking the buildings to see if they were empty before moving in with armored bulldozers. But the elderly and infirm are sometimes unable to make their presence known or get out in time.

As part of broader efforts to restart peace talks, the Bush administration has been pressuring the Palestinian leadership to carry out reforms.

In a blow to that effort, the Palestinians announced Monday that municipal elections, which had been scheduled to begin next month, would be pushed back to November.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei said the delay was to allow time to make changes to the election law. But Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is thought to be fearful that Hamas-supported candidates would win in many localities, particularly in Gaza.