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News Analysis: Does Coalition Crisis Herald End of Sharon's Government?
Israel's right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union party on Monday quit the national unity government under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after its two ministers resigned.
It was the first crisis Sharon faced since he established the coalition last March by uniting political forces from both the left-wing and right-wing camps. Will the current crisis herald the end of the hawkish prime minister's rainbow coalition?
In a short term, it should be safe to predict that the Sharon government could survive the shock wave of the withdrawal of the Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union. observers said.
Firstly, it is still unknown whether the far right party is serious about its resignation or it just used the withdrawal as a political maneuver to pressure Sharon to accept their demands regarding the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
National Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi's resignation would only go into effect in 48 hours and they could retreat them anytime within the limit. If they withdraw their resignation in the end, it would only be a coalition farce, not a crisis.
That's the reason why Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, who shares the political views with Lieberman and Ze'evi, urged the two right-wing politicians to rescind their decisions.
Secondly, even if the Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union is serious about its decision and does leave the coalition, the government's majority in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament) will remain intact.
The Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union, which has seven members in the parliament, was the fourth biggest party in the coalition, far less than Sharon's Likud party with 19 seats in the parliament, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' Labor party with 24 seats and the ultra-orthodox religious Shas party, which has 17 seats.
Without the far right part, Sharon still has the support of 76 lawmakers, a clear majority in the parliament.
Thirdly, unlike the situation during the government of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the resignation of Ze'evi and Lieberman did not result in a chain reaction, at least temporarily.
Barak's government collapsed after Shas, Yisrael Ba'aliya and National Religious Party left the coalition one by one, but this time, the situation was totally different.
Landau denied reports Monday after that he would follow the two right-wing ministers to leave the government. Eli Yishai, leader of the pivotal Shas party, made a last-ditch effort to reverse his right-wing partners' decision. Natan Sharansky, leader of the Yisrael Ba'aliya party, did not follow Ze'evi and Lieberman's action even though he obviously share with their political views.
But analysts also pointed out that for Sharon, the resignation of the Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union from the government was a warning that his coalition would disintegrate in the long run.
Ze'evi and Lieberman said that their resignation was triggered by the government's decision to withdraw troops from Palestinian areas in the West Bank city of Hebron and to ease closure against Palestinian towns and villages.
They also accused Sharon of giving in to the foreign policies of dovish Peres, which they think are dangerous to the Jewish state's security and survival.
Their remarks and thinking have indicated that their decision to leave the government may not be a knee-jerk reaction, but a result of the inborn split between the rightists of the coalition, represented by Landau, Lieberman and Ze'evi, and the leftists in the government, represented by Peres and his Labor colleagues.
The right wing wants the government to adopt tough measures against the Palestinians, including "no negotiations under fire" and eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth military reactions. They accused Peres and the left wing of being "treasonous" for their supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process even after bloody clashes.
Meanwhile, the left wing wants the government to resume peace talks with the Palestinians as a way to end the more than one year of violence, which has left over 800 people dead, most of them Palestinians.
The leftists' vision has won the support of the United States, especially after the terror attacks in New York and Washington on September 11.
In the past, as the security situation was still serious and there was no light at the end of the tunnel, Sharon would equivocate between the left wing and the right wing, trying to patch up the coalition. He has in fact succeeded in doing so in the past half year.
Now, however, as the U.S. is set to step up involvement in the Middle East and the Palestinians showed their willingness to maintain quiet on the ground, the conflict between the right wing and the left wing in Sharon's coalition finally broke out.
The antinomy in the coalition has forced Sharon into a situation between the rock and a hard place: if he takes harsh stands against the Palestinians, the left wing would leave his government, and if he adopts soft stands, the right wing would go, as what happened on Monday.
He simply could not satisfy the needs of both sides at the same time.
In Monday's incident, Sharon could also smell the trace of former right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is eager to return to politics and replace Sharon as Likud party leader and prime minister.
To achieve his political aims, Netanyahu obviously adopts a more hawkish attitude than Sharon and attacked him from the right wing.
It was widely believed that both Lieberman, a former close aide to Netanyahu, and Ze'evi have coordinated their moves with Netanyahu, who was active in the political arena in the past few weeks.
Considering all these factors, it is predictable that even the Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union had not left the coalition on Monday, it would take the step someday in the future.
In short, the move of the Yisrael Beiteinu - National Union may be the first in a long collapsing process of the Sharon government. How to avoid the unavoidable destiny would be one of his challenging tasks.
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