Israel’s Peres may bolt Labour for Sharon party

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres
may leave the Labour Party that ousted him as its leader and
join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s new centrist list, a
spokesman for Peres said on Monday.

The defection of the 82-year-old Peres would represent a
vote of confidence by the Nobel peace laureate in Sharon’s
oft-repeated pledge to make “painful concessions” for peace
with the Palestinians.

But the jury is out over whether Peres, branded a “loser”
by Israeli political satirists for repeated defeats in national
elections, would win or cost Sharon votes in Israel’s March 28
ballot.

Israeli media reports said Sharon had offered Peres the job
of peace envoy if the prime minister’s new Kadima party wins
the general election, Israeli media reports said.

Speaking to Israeli reporters on Sunday, Peres said: “It is
a very difficult decision, as it is so tied up with historic
and other considerations. It will take me a day or two to
decide.”

While Peres enjoys wide popularity overseas, many Israelis
have been disillusioned by the interim peace accords he
championed in the early 1990s, agreements followed by a
Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000.

“They very much want him,” Yoram Dori, a spokesman for
Peres, said about officials in Kadima. But he said no specific
job had been discussed and Peres was “considering what would be
the best way to contribute to Israel in the coming years.”

“The Labour Party is something he built up and headed for
20 years. It’s not a simple matter,” Dori said.

STUNNED

A visibly stunned Peres, vice premier in Sharon’s coalition
government, lost a Labour leadership election on November 9 to
trade union chief Amir Peretz, whose decision to pull the party
out of the cabinet reshuffled the political deck in Israel.

Faced with a far-right revolt in Likud over a unilateral
Gaza pullout completed in September, Sharon opted to quit the
party he co-founded and stake a claim to a middle ground.

The former general, accused by opponents of the withdrawal
of having surrendered to Palestinian violence, has pledged to
seek peace under a U.S.-backed road map that charts a path
toward a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

But he said there could be no talks on statehood until the
Palestinians disarm militants under the peace plan, which also
calls for a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in the
occupied West Bank.

Sharon and Peres, who have a combined age of 159, forged an
alliance a year ago when Labour joined the Likud-led coalition
to help the prime minister carry out the first evacuation of
Jewish settlements from land Palestinians want for a state.

Opinion polls predict Kadima will bound past Labour and
Likud in the coming election, ensuring Sharon, 77, will be back
for a third term as prime minister, a post Peres has held
twice.

To keep up the momentum and build on his constituency even
before he formulates a full platform, Sharon has cast his net
far and wide in search of allies to represent a broad
cross-section of the Israeli public.

Peres was quoted as telling confidants “they don’t want me
in Labour.” Labour officials have countered that they may name
him honorary party president, a prospect he rejected in the
past.