Now Comes The Tough Part For Sharon

Bolstered by a resounding election victory, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday called for a national unity government against "the murderous hatred" of Palestinian militants. But the parties he needs for a broad-based coalition may not be willing to join.

He may not even have the complete support of his own party, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier. He is one of the few in his party who supports Palestinian independence.

"You have everyone at the top of the Likud, apart from Sharon, firmly on the record, opposed to Palestinian statehood. Sharon is saying no, I won this election because I've been open to the notion of Palestinian statehood, and because I've got the Americans on my side," said David Horovitz, editor of The Jerusalem Report.

"We have an absolute conflict between the victorious prime minister and his own victorious party. It's extraordinary."

Although Sharon is largely responsible for the harsh crackdown against the Palestinian uprising, he also needs to appear to be the peacemaker.

"He wants to maintain this very close alliance he has with the Bush Administration, and he therefore needs to be seen to be heading a reasonable, peace-willing coalition," said Horovitz.

At the same time, Sharon is the man the Palestinians love to hate, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger. They blame Sharon for more than two years of conflict.

"You know Sharon is responsible for what happened here in the Middle East," said Palestinian Reim Sumira.

On the other hand, the Palestinian suicide bombers helped bring Sharon to power in the first place, nearly two years ago.

Late Wednesday, Sharon rebuffed an offer by Yasser Arafat to meet immediately and resume peace talks — an indication that the Israeli prime minister will stick to his tough policies in his second term.

The vote indicates that the Israeli public is strongly behind Sharon's policy of no peace talks until Palestinian terrorism ends. By contrast, Sharon's opponent, Amram Mitzna, offered to resume peace talks with Yasser Arafat. But Israelis are fed up with Arafat, and Mitzna's campaign never took off.

"We are in a war, we need to act like we're in war, and to fight," Jerusalem housewife Dafna Sadan told Berger.

If Sharon can't form a unity government, he may have to settle for an alliance with religious and ultranationalist parties that are opposed to U.S.-backed peace moves and demand even tougher measures against the Palestinians. Israel TV quoted Sharon as saying off-camera that he'd rather call new elections than preside over such a narrow coalition.

The Labor Party has already said it won't join a government with Sharon because he does not have a diplomatic plan to end the conflict.

With Israelis focused on their internal politics, there appeared no prospect for a quick resumption of peace negotiations that broke down two years ago.

Sharon will have 42 days to put together his government, and it is common for the process to take several weeks as the parties haggle for Cabinet positions and clout in the coalition.

As perhaps Israel's most controversial politician, Sharon was considered unelectable just a few years ago. However, Sharon overcame a corruption scandal and scores of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks, to lead his nationalist Likud party to a resounding victory.

The 74-year-old veteran of military and political wars also pulled off what no prime minister has achieved since founding father David Ben-Gurion managed it in 1961 — calling an early election and winning.

Sharon's hawkish Likud almost doubled its strength, from 19 to 37 seats in the 120-member parliament. Likud's political rival, the center-left Labor, posted its worst-ever showing, dropping from 26 to 19 seats.

Wednesday morning's Yediot Ahronot newspaper had a triple headline on its front page: "Sharon wins, the left crashes, Lapid leaps," referring to pundit-turned-politician Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, head of the centrist Shinui Party, which more than doubled its strength to 15 seats, becoming the third-largest faction.

Addressing Likud supporters in Tel Aviv early Wednesday, Sharon said Israelis must unite against external threats. "The differences between us are dwarfed by the murderous hatred of the terror organizations," he said.

Sharon has said he wants to revive his 20-month alliance with Labor that collapsed last November. But he did not mention the party by name in his victory speech or offer any policy incentives that might prompt Labor to reverse its campaign promise to stay out of a Sharon government.

"There's no doubt that the Likud can go and establish a right-wing, nationalist government based on yesterday's results," Limor Livnat, a Likud Cabinet minister, told Israel Radio.

"But the prime minister has said all the way that he supports with all his heart...a broad, national unity government because the challenges we are facing now are especially difficult," she added.

Israeli commentators also said that Sharon wanted to avoid presiding over a narrow right-wing government, because it would limit his political options and be vulnerable to collapse.

"A right-wing government would severely reduce the political maneuvering in facing the Americans and make it difficult for (Sharon) to find a way out of the economic collapse," columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

In his concession speech, Mitzna said he would lead a spirited opposition and prepare Labor for the next election.

"Politics are a marathon, and we are only in the first few kilometers. It is no shame to be in the opposition, and I promise you that our time there will be short," said the 57-year-old former general, who champions a quick withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank.

Yet with Labor's poor showing, there was speculation that the party would try to depose Mitzna, the mayor of Haifa, who took the helm of Labor only two months ago.

During the vote, the Israeli military imposed stringent travel bans in the Palestinian areas, including curfews that confined hundreds of thousands of West Bank residents to their homes. Sharon has presided over major military offensives against militant groups accused of deadly attacks on Israelis, and in June troops reoccupied nearly all West Bank population centers.

"You have Sharon in a new government, a war against Iraq imminent, the disappearance of the peace process, all these factors," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, adding that nonetheless the Palestinians respected Israel's democratic choice.

A big winner in the election was Shinui, which successfully appealed to disaffected middle-class voters rebelling against what they perceive as religious coercion by ultra-Orthodox Jewish political parties and an unfair tax burden.

Further complicating coalition scenarios, Lapid, Shinui's leader, insisted he would only join a coalition with Likud and Labor, without religious parties.

"We think that the country is facing very grave crises and a narrow right-wing government is not the address for this," Lapid told Army Radio.

However, he stressed that Shinui envisioned itself as a centrist party, "and of course won't serve as the left post of a right-wing government."

For Sharon, setting up a secular government with Labor and Shinui would mean breaking a strategic alliance with Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party representing Jews whose families originated in Arabic-speaking countries.

The vote was Israel's fourth national election in seven years, and only 68.5 percent of the 4.7 million-strong electorate cast ballots, the lowest-ever participation in a Knesset election.

The campaign failed to ignite excitement, both because Sharon's victory was considered inevitable and because Israelis have despaired of a quick fix to the bloody and debilitating conflict.

Sharon was elected in February 2001, several months after fighting erupted, in a landslide over Labor's Ehud Barak, who had offered the Palestinians a state in Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Negotiations fell apart over several issues, including the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.

Sharon rescinded Barak's offers and has boycotted Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, convincing the U.S. administration he should be replaced.

The Palestinian Authority and its economy have been largely crushed, and Israel too has suffered: tourism collapsed, the economy contracted, inflation and unemployment shot up.