Israel's Peres Ready To Bolt Party
Israeli elder statesman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres plans to leave Israel's dovish Labor Party, after suffering a humiliating defeat in the race for the party leadership.
Officials said Peres will join forces with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new centrist party and become the senior peace negotiator with the Palestinians, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. With a combined age of 159, Sharon and Peres remain the top players in Israeli politics.
In Barcelona on Tuesday, Peres, who promised a formal announcement Wednesday, had warm words for Sharon — and none for Labor, whose members ousted him as party chairman earlier this month, in favor of union firebrand Amir Peretz.
"The real change is not in the Labor Party. The real change is in the Likud Party," he added. "Mr. Sharon took a different direction for a Palestinian state. He wants to continue the peace process."
Meanwhile, Sharon's new Kadima, or Forward, Party has set out broad policy goals including peaceful coexistence between Israel and a future Palestinian state. That state would be created according to the U.S.-backed road map peace plan, and would be conditional on an end to terrorism. Though it's not spelled out in the platform, officials say the party will support further pullouts from parts of the West Bank, following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer.
In other developments:
"It looks like a package deal," Labor's secretary-general, Eitan Cabel, told Army Radio. "We spoke about their remaining (in Labor) and not defecting to another party, but apparently things were already sealed, and the talks with us were nothing but a smokescreen."
Other party-jumping incidents dominated Israeli news late Monday and early Tuesday.
Shelly Yachimovitch, a well-known broadcast journalist, announced her plan to contend for a slot on the Labor party list. Sharon successfully wooed Prof. Uriel Reichman, chairman of the middle class, secular Shinui party.
Also Tuesday, a Sharon ally said the prime minister hopes to clinch a final peace deal with the Palestinians if re-elected — the clearest sign yet of Sharon's agenda for a possible third term.
Sharon's new party, Kadima, "will strive in this term to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians and to set Israel's permanent boundaries," Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said.
"We understand that to reach a final status agreement, there is no choice ... but to create two states for two nations," Sheetrit told Israel Radio.
Last week, Sharon quit the Likud Party he helped to found because he was convinced that dissidents opposed to the summer's Gaza withdrawal would try to stifle further concessions to the Palestinians and the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. Days later, parliament's term was cut short and early elections were called for late March.
Kadima, dominated by former Likud lawmakers, held its first formal meeting on Monday. But while it sketched out broad policy goals, including peaceful coexistence with a future Palestinian state, it did not go so far as to declare the creation of that state as a goal for the coming term.
Sheetrit became more specific in his comments Tuesday.
"I think in this term, the prime minister, having taken the bold step of leaving Gaza ...is ripe to reach a final status agreement," he said.
Recent polls show Sharon headed toward a third term and able to put together a moderate coalition government with the Labor Party, which also supports a final peace deal.
Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib played down the significance of Sheetrit's remarks, saying Sharon and the Palestinians had a different peace deal in mind.
"He is pursuing a unilateral approach, which is not constructive, and he wants peace that is incompatible with our legitimate rights and with international legality," Khatib said.
In practice, Sharon is building settlements and consolidating Israel's occupation of the West Bank, "moving in the opposite direction" of a final peace deal, he said.
"I think these statements are public relations and election-related kind of statements," he added.
While Israel's election campaign heats up, on the Palestinian side, primaries for the ruling Fatah party were in disarray less than two months before Jan. 25 parliamentary elections, roiled by violence and problems with party lists.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he'd honor results of Fatah primaries in the West Bank last week, but has not decided whether voting should take place in other areas.
"Elections have been done in some places, and we deal with that in a positive way," Abbas said after returning from a trip to Spain. "For places which have not held their primaries, we will find a suitable solution."
Some Fatah officials said earlier Tuesday that Abbas ordered voting suspended, but his aides denied this.
On Monday, Gaza primaries were canceled after gunmen attacked polling stations. The cancellations embarrassed Abbas, who has been unable to restore order in the coastal strip — or in his own party — ahead of a stiff electoral challenge from the Islamic militant group Hamas.