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Israeli President Calls for Formation of Unity Government
Israeli President Moshe Katsav November 21 repeated his call for the establishment of a national unity government to deal with the current crisis.
Speaking during a solidarity tour of kfar Darom south of Gaza City following a bombing attack against an Israeli settler school bus November 20 which killed two Israelis and injured nine others, Katsav said "now more than ever there is a need for a national unity government."
The president urged various political parties to join Prime Minister Ehud Barak's initiative to set up a broad-based government to prop up Barak's shaky government.
In the wake of the bomb attack in Gaza, Barak renewed his attempts to form a national emergency unity government and held talks with representatives of the Likud, the National Religious Party, the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, Yisrael Ba'aliya or the immigrants' party, the secular Shinui Party and the left-wing Meretz Party.
The talks did not fare the well as both sides could not agree on the terms for setting up the government.
Likud leader Ariel Sharon demanded that Barak "declare" that the understandings reached with the Palestinians at Camp David are null and void while Yisrael Ba'aliya leader Natan Sharansky required Barak to announce that Palestinian National Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was no more a peace partner. Barak rejected the two requests.
The prime minister was "not prepared" to set a date for early elections as was demanded by Eli Yishai, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party whose "safety net" to the Barak government expires on November 28.
Shas has promised not to extend the four-week "safety net" the party granted to Barak at the reopening of the Knesset (parliament) at the end of October to prevent the government from being toppled by opposition factions.
Despite the differences with opposition parties, the Prime Minister's Office said November 20 night that Barak will continue to examine the possibility of forming a national unity government.
Barak's government was reduced to a minority government with only 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset in early August as coalition partners quit largely due to dissatisfaction over Barak's handling of the peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Israeli president also said during the tour that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has the right to call back their ambassador to Israel to discuss the current situation.
He hopes the ambassador will tell President Mubarak the whole truth concerning the Israeli-Palestinian clashes which have so far claimed more than 240 lives, mostly Palestinians.
President Mubarak Tuesday ordered the immediate return of Egypt's ambassador to Israel in view of "Israel's escalation of aggression" against the Palestinians, referring to Israel's air raids on Gaza City and other Palestinian targets overnight.
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