- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli
Prime Minster Ariel Sharon won a tenuous lease on life for his minority
government, surviving parliamentary no-confidence votes just after a Palestinian
suicide bomber killed two people in a shopping mall.
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- The Knesset, rejecting three no-confidence motions in
Sharon's shrunken coalition on Monday, also approved his choice of hawkish
former army chief Shaul Mofaz as defense minister.
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- Losing the no-confidence votes would have forced Sharon
into an early general election. He can now press on with efforts to enlist
ultra nationalist parties into the right-wing government he hopes to form
after the collapse of his broad coalition.
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- Israel was plunged into political crisis last week when
the center-left Labour Party bolted from Sharon's "national unity
government" in a dispute over funding for Jewish settlements on occupied
lands where Palestinians want to establish their state.
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- In an interview published on Tuesday in Britain's Times
newspaper, Sharon said he planned to remain in power and lead Israel to
peace through "painful compromises."
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- "I believe I will have to lead this nation for several
years to give answers and solutions to the issue of security, the issue
of the political process, the economy," he said.
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- Palestinians have expressed alarm that an Israeli government
dominated by right-wing nationalists would be ideologically opposed to
a Palestinian state and would use harsher methods to crush their two-year-old
uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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- How Israel responds to Monday's suicide bombing could
give Washington an answer as to whether a government without Labour's moderates
would avoid, as Sharon has promised, any action that could damage U.S.
efforts to win Arab support for possible war on Iraq.
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- CLAIM OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR BOMBING
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- The London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper said it had
received a claim of responsibility from the Al-Quds Brigade of the militant
Palestinian group Islamic Jihad for the bombing at the Arim shopping mall
in the central Israeli city of Kfar Saba.
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- "There are two bodies of innocent victims, and the
suicide bomber," police spokesman Gil Kleiman said. More than 30 people
were wounded.
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- In a sign of how routine suicide attacks have become
during the Palestinian uprising, the Israeli parliament continued its Monday
session uninterrupted.
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- Earlier, a Palestinian Hamas militant and another person
were killed in an explosion in a car in the West Bank city of Nablus that
Palestinian officials blamed on Israel.
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- In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed five Palestinians
in incidents near volatile border areas. Palestinians said the dead were
civilians. The army said the five men were armed.
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- At least 1,645 Palestinians and 623 Israelis have been
killed since the Palestinian revolt began in September 2000 after peace
talks focusing on a Palestinian state foundered.
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- Raanan Gissin, a Sharon spokesman, said Israel would
not give up its fight against militants.
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- "It is regrettable that once again the terrorists
misconstrue, miscalculate the strength of Israel democracy because while
we are engaged in a democratic process of trying to form a new government
we are not going to give up the relentless fight against terrorists,"
Gissin told Reuters.
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- As was widely expected, Sharon -- who now controls 55
seats in the 120-member parliament -- defeated the no-confidence motions
with the help of the opposition ultra nationalist National Union-Yisrael
Beitenu party.
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- The party, which Sharon is courting for his coalition,
abstained in the Knesset voting. This denied the prime minister's opponents
the 61 votes necessary to force elections before October 2003, when they
are due by law.
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- But the far-right party's support for Sharon could be
short-lived and conditional on the success of coalition negotiations. Pressure
has been building in parliament to hold a vote some time between February
and May.
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- "Even if (the government) doesn't fall this week,
it will fall next week," said Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing
Meretz party.
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