- JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's
coalition government collapsed Wednesday as Defence Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer and other Labour ministers quit right-wing Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's cabinet, throwing the country's politics into turmoil and opening
the door to snap elections.
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- Ben Eliezer, leader of the centre-left Labour, resigned
after last-minute talks with Sharon failed to reach a compromise over Israel's
2003 austerity budget that had enraged Labour with its high subsidies for
Jewish settlements.
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- Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Labour's senior politician
and leading dove, and Culture Minister Matan Vilnai immediately followed
Ben Eliezer in walking out.
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- Despite the revolt, parliament still passed the budget
at its first reading by 67 votes to 45.
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- The crumbling of the 18-month-old national unity government
created fresh upheaval with Israel already been bogged down in a low-level
war of attrition with the Palestinians since September 2000.
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- It also comes as Israel's chief ally, the United States,
is weighing an invasion of Iraq, which could further jolt the region.
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- Finance Minister Sylvan Shalom, from Sharon's right-wing
Likud party, blamed Ben Eliezer for sabotaging a compromise which the two
parties were on the verge of clinching.
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- "There was an agreement. It was accepted by the
foreign minister, Mr. Shimon Peres, and his colleagues, but unfortunately,
the leader of the Labour party, the defence minister, didn't accept it.
He gave his resignation," said Shalom.
-
- He accused Ben Eliezer of sacrificing the government
for his policial career as the defence minister looks to fend off his more
dovish rivals in Labour's leadership primaries on November 19.
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- "I must say it was only because of the internal
politics of the Labour party."
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- But Ben Eliezer fired back on the parliament floor: "We
were always against the budget and yet we did the impossible trying to
reach a compromise."
-
- For his part, Sharon, a former general, vowed to soldier
on, urging the country to "make a show of unity and responsibility."
-
- The government had already teetered on the brink of collapse
with Labour threatening to vote against Sharon's budget unless he levelled
out 150 million dollars in spending on settlements with funding for poorer
sectors of society throughout Israel.
-
- In turn, Sharon had warned he would sack any minister
who voted against a budget designed to tackle the country's worst-ever
economic slump, a recession brought on at least in part by the Palestinian
uprising, which has been fuelled by fury over the Jewish settlements.
-
- But the two sides appeared briefly to move away from
the precipice, agreeing to delay the parliamentary vote while they hammered
out a compromise on the budget that forecast drastic cuts in social services.
-
- Two lawyers acting as intermediaries between Ben Eliezer
and Sharon told reporters they had come up with a formula whereby a matching
sum to that allocated to the settlements would go towards development grants
for poor sections of the Israeli population.
-
- But the talks broke down after two hours, with the defence
minister tendering his resignation and storming out of the meeting.
-
- With Labour out of the government, Sharon could seek
a narrow coalition dominated by the far right or ask President Moshe Katsav
to dissolve parliament and call elections within 90 days, some nine months
earlier than scheduled.
-
- Public radio said Sharon had already tapped former army
chief of staff General Shaul Mofaz to replace Ben Eliezer as defence minister.
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- While Ben Eliezer prepared to battle it out with his
Labour rivals in primaries next month, Sharon looked set to win a run-off
in his Likud party against rival and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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- And his Likud party is also well ahead of Labour in popularity
ratings.
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- Even as Israel's political landscape was shaken, violence
carried on. A Palestinian gunman launched a bloody attack, killing two
girls and a woman at the Hermesh settlement in the northern West Bank late
Tuesday.
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- It was the second attack on a West Bank settlement in
48 hours. On Sunday a suicide bombing at the large settlement of Ariel
killed three Israeli soldiers as well as the bomber.
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- A Palestinian man was shot dead Wednesday by security
guards protecting Israeli labourers after he opened fire on them on a road
in the northern West Bank village of Zeita.
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- Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met his new
cabinet after pushing through his reshuffled ministerial team on Tuesday.
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- Despite harsh criticism from reformers, who said Arafat
had stacked his new team with old guard from his own Fatah faction, Arafat
won overwhelming support from parliament -- dominated by Fatah -- after
arguing that a snub for him would be a victory for Sharon, who wants him
dropped.
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- Parliament rejected his previous line-up in September,
a revolt seen as a spasm of democracy in an otherwise quiescent assembly.
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- One of the new cabinet's main tasks will be to prepare
for presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 20
despite the fact that Israel's four-month reoccupation of the West Bank
shows no sign of ending.
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