Barak has problem forming broad coalition in Israel

By Hans Lebrecht

TEL AVIV - Israel's Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak, head of the Labor party and the "One Israel" three-party union, three weeks after his landslide victory, is still having difficulty establishing his coalition on the "broadest possible" base, which he has said he wanted to do.

Barak needs, beside the support of the 26 Knesset Members (MKs) of One Israel, a coalition of at least five other Knesset factions in order to have the support of a stable parliamentary majority. This small coalition of 66 MKs (in the 120-member Knesset) was feasible as a last resort for Barak. The new government is expected to be presented for confidence vote in the Knesset in another three to four weeks.

But on June 6, in the first public TV interview after the elections, Barak stated that if he has to, he will present the Knesset with a 66-member coalition composed of One Israel, "left" Zionist Meretz, anti-clerical democratic Shinui, "One Nation" workers party, and two clerical parties, one of which is the Zionist National Religion Party (Mafdal).

Meanwhile, Barak's difficulties are, among others, the widespread demand to not include the Likud party in his government coalition because it is responsible for the disastrous government policy of the last three years, resulting in the peace-process deep-freeze, and the economic crisis with a drastic increase in unemployment and poverty. The Likud is now in shambles and occupied with inner strife.

Concerning the peace process, in the draft guidelines published this week, Barak promises to renew all efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians, with Syria and Lebanon.

However, the draft proposes:

Israel would not retreat to the pre-1967 demarcation lines (as demanded by Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and adopted as base for the 1993 Israeli-PLO Oslo Declaration of Principles). Barak insists on redeploying the Israeli army only to so-called "Red Lines" (which will leave for Palestinian self rule, or future state, not more than about 40 percent of the West Bank and two-thirds of the Gaza Strip).

The status of Jerusalem (within the city boundaries unilaterally adopted by Israel in violation of international law, and incorporating the eastern part of the city and its vicinity) is indisputable.

No new (colonialist) settlements would be established in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, while the expansion of existing settlements would be "only" according to their "natural growth."

The settlements would no longer enjoy the preferred status in allocations of economic resources, extended by the Netanyahu government.

However, the government would provide for the settlers' security in all existing settlements. This means that Israel's occupation army would stay in their fortified positions and outposts, as well as "securing" the many strategic roads for the "settlers," criss-crossing the territory to be handed over to Palestinian autonomy.

Other parts of the guideline draft promise no more religious legislation and opposes "religious and anti-religious coercion," freedom of religion and "freedom from religion." But, here, Barak might possibly back down in order to get the clerical parties into his fold.

Further on, the draft states that the government will act to complete the Basic Laws and unify them into a constitution. Israel has no constitution yet, mainly because the clerical parties oppose clauses that will guarantee equal civil rights for all citizens irrespective of their racial or national origin, religious beliefs, or sex, as was promised in Israel's Independence Charter of 1948.

As far as I can remember, all the governments so far have promised to end the discussion about the constitution, but have never wanted, or succeeded in getting, the two-thirds majority in the Knesset to overcome clerical opposition to it.