In 2003 Uri Averny wrote for the need of a "a Sharon of the Left" for the sake of mid-east, and his wish might just come true, Amir Peretz has come from behind to challange Sharon and his own party, something no one in the Democratic party here seems ready to do.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...4-11-2003_pg3_5

He is ready to take back the voters who were hijacked by the right in Israel, something the Democrats need to do....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4425260.stm

From his own website...
http://www.amirperetz.co.il/English3rd.html


http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/644337.html

Who is out there that can rescue our Democracy?

Interesting because at least in the past the Sephardi Jews have tended to vote for the Likud because Labor represented the "Ashkenazi establishment." (The Ashkenazis are the Jews who came from Europe and America.)

This guy seems to be certainly daring enough. But it may be better to be in the opposition than to get crumbs from being a minority partner in government.

A lot of Jewish immigrants from Russia... who arn't really "Jewish" !

The ethnic/demographic dynamics have changed a bit recently, and grown quite complex.

On the other side of the ledger is this kind of thing:

Israel's 'linchpin' settlement
By Raffi Berg
BBC News website, Maale Adumim

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/worl...ast/4419046.stm

Published: 2005/11/12 15:47:08 GMT

On a hill east of Jerusalem stands the settlement of Maale Adumim, the fate of which is emerging as one of the thorniest and most critical issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians.



When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unveiled his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, he made clear that part of that plan would involve strengthening the major settlement blocks in the West Bank - of which Maale Adumim is the largest.

"These will be an integral part of the State of Israel in any future agreement [with the Palestinians]," he said in December 2003, a position endorsed by US President George W Bush some months later.

Home to 30,000 settlers, Maale Adumim's municipal borders are larger than those of the metropolis of Tel Aviv, stretching almost to Jericho in the east and Jerusalem in the west.

But it is built on land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state and, like all settlements, is considered illegal under international law - although Israel disputes this.

New apartments

Construction work in Maale Adumim is continuing apace, to meet the demands of what Israel calls "natural growth".

In the east of the settlement, in an area known as 07, apartment blocks are being built to accommodate 3,500 people, enticed by economic concessions from the government.

Official spokesman Mark Regev denies it is a violation of the roadmap peace plan, under which Israel agreed to freeze all settlement building.

"Israel takes our roadmap commitments very seriously and is acting in accordance with them. We have a policy not to build new settlements or outwardly expand existing settlements," he said.

Ironically the construction workers are predominantly Palestinians, unable to find work elsewhere.



"Other Palestinians are not angry at us," said 42-year-old labourer Mahmoud Ibrahim, from the West Bank village of Anata.

"They understand there is no other way to get money and the most important thing for us is to feed our children," added the father-of-five, who earns 3,000 shekels ($650) a month.

To the north of the settlement plans are under way for one of the most sensitive building projects in the West Bank.

Here, in an area called E1, Israel wants to build more homes and ultimately connect the settlement to east Jerusalem, about six kilometres away.

Crucial period

The Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now says that would be a disaster for the Palestinians because it would cut off east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

"Maale Adumim is critical for a future peace deal," said Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran.

------------------
JEWISH SETTLEMENTS
Widely regarded by international community as illegal under international law according to Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), which prohibits an occupying power transferring citizens from its own territory to occupied territory
Israel argues international conventions relating to occupied land do not apply to West Bank because they were not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state in the first place
-------------------

"You can't really have a viable Palestinian state without territorial continuity. This is really the place at the centre of this problem."

For Israel, building on E1 is crucial in consolidating its hold over the whole of Jerusalem and having a security buffer in the east.

But under US pressure, plans to start building there have been postponed, a state of affairs which has angered Maale Adumim Mayor Benny Kashrie.

"The Palestinians misinform the Americans and the Europeans - they say building in E1 will cut a Palestinian state in two. This is absolutely not true at all," he said.

"The municipal border will be open, and right now our government is building a new $42m ring-road connecting east Jerusalem with Ramallah and Bethlehem, enabling the Palestinians to move north to south freely, without passing any checkpoints.

"Our government should go to the White House and say 'Look, you are our friends and we appreciate it, but we have our red line and that is to freeze building in Maale Adumim'," Mr Kashrie said.

'Key to Jerusalem'

So important is the issue that Ariel Sharon's political rival Binyamin Netanyahu chose E1 as the place from which to launch his campaign to unseat the prime minister in September 2005.






"This is Jerusalem, it's our capital," he said, standing on a barren hilltop.

"Nobody can tell us to freeze building in our capital. What we need to do is to break this siege by building here."

Preparatory work is in evidence in E1. A dirt track leading to Jerusalem - the basis for a future road - is already in use on the hillside, while the foundations for a police station have been laid.

Nowhere is the future of E1 felt more strongly than in the settlement itself.

"Maale Adumim is a very strategic place," said settlement resident Itay Cohen, 25.



It was a view echoed by another resident, Shulamit Fisch.

"Does [Maale Adumim] stand in the way of a Palestinian state? I hope so. It should prevent a Palestinian state.

The settlers are crazy fundies, no doubt about it, but Peretz rise is a sure sign the vast majority of Israelis are getting tired of supporting the occupation and the messianic cause of the settlers. That would be another parallel, that they see the ocupation as drain both morally and financially, just as Americans see the Iraqi occupation.

Again from Avneri...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00195.htm



The Eastern Jews were once a core constituency of Labor, just as poor and working Americans were of the Democratic party, but Sharon and other Likud leaders used fear and manipulation to gain their support. But with a populist Eastern Jew like Peretz in the race, labor has a chance to regain control, and with it the high road.

More from the Article...



Right now, this may be one of the most important Elections going on for anyone who has a hope for peace. If Peretz can really pull this off, and he gets the support he needs, two things that may very well be difficult, it really changes the dynamic in the Middle East. The Arabs can not complain so loudly when a peace activist Moroccan Jew is the PM, and the USA will be in the position of being the only bad guy left. And that situation may cause the west to rethink their antagonistic ways.

Well, I'm not disputing any of your optimism-- but I've seen so much optimism in the past lead to naught.

And I do remember how excruciatingly difficult if was for Sharon to extricate a handful of settlers from the Gaza strip. Surely, to remove and depopulate most of the settlements in the the West Bank will be a thousand times more difficult and violent--- and there may be something close to civil war if that were attempted.

And btw, do these look like temporary settlments that will be abandoned in the near future?


Here's an article that relates to the issue (I'm not posting it either to support or detract from any particular argument.):


Reversing the theory of non-reversibility
By Meron Benvenisti 25/08/2005

There is something touching, albeit expected, in the enthusiastic reactions and the rosy forecasts being voiced by spokesmen of the left-wing camp with regard to the disengagement and the day after.

Touching, because the need to celebrate the fall of the right wing and prove that the settlements and occupation are reversible is so great that caution and skepticism are thrown to the winds and in their stead comes infectious optimism.

As yesterday's editorial on these pages stated, giving expression to wishful thinking disguised as a realistic forecast: "The cumulative accounting shows that this was only the first evacuation, which will be followed by more."

The congratulations heaped on Ariel Sharon by spokesmen of the left are mere echoes of those heaped by them upon Yitzhak Shamir, who in 1991 went to the Madrid Conference, as if he were being frog-marched. "Do it your way, with your own tactics; the authority is all yours. Just bring peace now," they told him.

Indications that the disengagement from Gaza might bring about the expansion of settlements and the institutionalization of the Israeli control over the West Bank are all swept under the carpet as irrelevant.

The belief that the national instinct is activated whenever something appears to be wrong leads to the conclusion that the disengagement plan was conceived to shatter the theory of non-reversibility - that theory which 25 years ago foresaw the durability of the geopolitical status quo in the Land of Israel and the de facto strengthening of a binational apartheid-like entity. A quarter century has elapsed and there are still pronouncements that it will be shattered.

In 1983, it was decided that nothing is irreversible and therefore the settlements are "facts on paper." In 1987, it was decided that non-reversibility had collapsed as soon as a Palestinian youth began throwing stones. In 1991, the peace conference in Madrid served as absolute proof of the theory's bankruptcy since the "historic day of the division of the land" had arrived.

The Oslo accords "totally" refuted the pessimistic non-reversibility that plays into the hands of the right and the Yesha Council of settlements, since the Palestinian state was about to come into being and the future of the settlements had become past tense.

When the number of settlers topped a quarter of a million, when more than 100 outposts had been established, when the fence had been built deep in Palestinian territory and when the "border crossings" had been set up near Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah, the number of voices finally trying to relate to the quasi-permanent reality created by the settlements and the facts that emerged after the shattering of the occupied territories into besieged and isolated cantons started to grow.

President Bush's letter, which recognizes the new reality "that includes large concentrations of Israeli population," appears to ratify the theory of non-reversibility and proves that facts on the ground become perceived facts.

It is no surprise that the evacuation of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria is conceived of as earth-shattering; after all, everything is reversible but not so reversible that it can undermine the facts that have been created in the West Bank. These do not contradict the optimistic feeling that the evacuation process, and the peace process in its wake, are once again proceeding on an inevitable course with Ariel Sharon at the helm, moving along with "his own tactics."

To feel convinced that there is indeed reason for this infectious optimism, the Algerian model is mentioned - Algeria against the mother-country, as if there is a sea that divides the two territories, the Gaza Strip and Israel. Where does the border between the colony and the mother-country run? Has Israel at any time defined the borders of the mother-country? What happens when, in the capital of the mother-country, the seat of its government, namely Jerusalem, part (East Jerusalem) is a colony and part is the mother-country? And how do those who recall the Algerian model define Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel, which are part of the consensus - as an annexed colony or as the mother-country?

The Algierian model cannot serve as an analytical tool but rather as a crutch for those who seek optimistic precedents saying that, just as the French occupation ended there, the occupation will also end here.

In fact, there is a consensus that unites most of the Israeli public except for the fringes on the right and left: After 120 years of Zionism, the Israelis have recognized the existence of millions of Palestinians who cannot be ignored or exiled.

That is why they decided to mark the borders of their territorial expansion with a fence and to return to the Palestinians those territories that can undermine the demographic balance and to place on their shoulders responsibility for the fate of millions of people.

In return, the Israelis are demanding that the nations of the world appreciate their generosity and approve an arrangement according to which the remaining area of the Land of Israel, which Israel has no desire for, will become a Palestinian state without the power of sustaining itself.

No one is asking the Palestinians; everything, after all, falls under the doctrine of unilateralism, which is also part of the consensus.

Gaza is the precedent for this vision and its realization at the expense of destroying the settlements appears to be a good deal. What a shame that, in the not-too-distant future, they will once again have to declare the shattering of the theory of non-reversibility.

Another Jewish view on the situation:

In the shadow of fragmentation

By Danny Rubinstein
HA´ARETZ NEWS OP-ED
August 2005

Yesterday's terrorist attack in Be'er Sheva contradicts Palestinian spokesmen's oft-repeated statements declaring that the cease-fire must be maintained. No one wants to spoil the planned celebrations of the liberation of Gaza and the preparations for Palestinian parliamentary elections, set to take place in less than five months.

Palestinians' expectations for what will soon happen in Gaza are soaring. Rumors circulating among their journalists over the past weekend speculated that the Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who is arriving in Gaza today, would look into, among other things, the possibility of President Hosni Mubarak visiting the Gaza Strip on the occasion of the declaration of Palestinian independence there.

There were even some who said that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke last week in Cairo with Mubarak about the possibility of convening an Arab summit in Gaza. Official spokesmen, however, denied this, but rumors of this sort are indicative of the mood on the Palestinian street prior to the completion of Israel's withdrawal from the Strip.

Even Hamas activists in Gaza understand that in the current situation, it is better to talk less about an intifada against Israel - and to warn of an intifada against senior Palestinian officials if they do not cease their corrupt ways. "There will be a huge popular uprising if the PA does not see to the needs of the entire nation," said Fathi Hamad, a Hamas activist from the Jabalya refugee camp.

The hope that quiet will prevail in Gaza is mixed among the Palestinians with fears that the price they may end up paying for the withdrawal will be unbearable.

These fears are evident in the Palestinian press' prominent coverage of a report that responsibility on the Israeli side of the Erez checkpoint would be transferred from the security forces to the Ministry of Interior.

In other words, the checkpoint would turn into a border crossing - like the kind that separates countries and where passports are inspected and stamped. Foreigners, Israelis and Palestinians as well, who pass through Erez will be treated like those going through a border crossing.

Why does this stir up fears? Because for years now, there has been concern among Palestinians over the possibility that Palestinian unity will be crushed if the population is divided into separate cantons.

This is not an ungrounded fear. One of the reasons for the Palestinian Nakba (or "catastrophe," as they see it) in 1948 was the lack of broad national solidarity among the Arabs here. Their deep connection to their homes and lands led in the end to many of them agreeing to become citizens of the Jewish state. Today, over a million Israeli Arabs are not part of the Palestinian national campaign.

Some feel that a similar process is under way in eastern Jerusalem. Defense officials say that among the quarter-of-a-million Arabs in Jerusalem who do not want to lose the advantages of an Israeli identity card, there is little hostile terrorist activity, relative to that in the Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karm and Qalqilyah districts, for example.

From the Palestinian perspective, Israel's fragmentation program is now going into its final phase with the start of Jewish construction that will connect Jerusalem to Ma'aleh Adumim, which will also be encircled by fences and separation walls. This will complete the division of the West Bank into two enclaves, Judea and Samaria, with no link between them.

The lives of some 4.5 million Palestinians living in Israel will then be divided into four separate entities: The first, in the West Bank, divided among Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron, will be subject to a combination of weak, autonomous Palestinian rule, terrorism perpetrated by local gangs, Jewish settlers' militias and Israeli army raids. The second, in Gaza, under sovereign Palestinian rule, will be characterized by attempts to develop a normal regime. The third will consist of the Arabs of Jerusalem who have the right to reside in Israel, and the fourth will consist of Arabs with Israeli citizenship.

This is not a plan for the future. This is the arrangement that already exists and the Palestinians' concern is that the withdrawal from Gaza is a step toward perpetuating it.

Israel's Populist Hope
Amir Peretz is running on a modest platform: end the war with Palestine and restore equality in Israel.

By Jo-Ann Mort

Amir Peretz, the new chairman of the Labor Party, is a progressive populist -- but he may be George W. Bush's best hope.

Peretz, who won a surprise, cliffhanger victory over incumbent chairman Shimon Peres last week, is a trade unionist in his gut. He is a masterful negotiator who has pledged that, if he is elected prime minister in the next Israeli elections (likely to be scheduled for spring 2006), he will move his country toward direct negotiations with the Palestinians.

Peretz's ideology is directly counter to everything the current U.S. administration believes in, but unlike the current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, Peretz wants to negotiate a final agreement that brings peace to the two sides.

Peretz ran his primary campaign promoting a higher minimum wage in a party that long ago lost its claim to the title "labor." Under Peres, and Ehud Barak before him, Labor's constituency shrank to a base in the well-heeled northern suburbs of Tel Aviv as its leaders championed a neoliberalism closer to Bush's policies than to the policies of the social democratic parties of Europe or to the early roots of the Labor Party. Peretz, on the other hand, hails from the "other Israel," the country's poor periphery, and has led Histadrut, Israel's union federation, since 1995.

In addition to representing poorer Israelis, Peretz represents civilian Israel, never having served in the higher echelons of the military. He calls himself a "social issues general," offering an egalitarian message that conflicts with recent Labor-supported causes, such as the near-complete privatization of the Israeli economy and the introduction of the Wisconsin plan's welfare-to-work schemes in the poorest towns and areas in Israel. He also infuses every argument about peace with a social and economic tinge, noting that the costs of protecting West Bank settlements drain needed money from Israel proper and from dire social needs.

And, perhaps most importantly, though he has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Peace Now movement, Peretz is also a critic of the peace movement's elitism, which has made it too weak to capture majority opinion (full disclosure: I serve on the board of Americans for Peace Now).

No Labor candidate can win a majority without taking votes away from the Likud Party; if Peretz can enlarge the shrinking base of the peace camp, he may be able to do just that.

Peretz's family came to Israel from Morocco in the 1950s, when Amir Peretz was four years old. They settled just a few miles from the Gaza border in a transit camp that became the Israeli town of Sderot, which is frequently hit these days by Qassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian extremists. At 54 years old, Peretz is a virtual youngster in Israeli terms.

He became mayor of Sderot at age 30, and always aimed to be prime minister. When he took over the Histadrut, he did so to gain a political platform. As the Histadrut chief, he returned a rather battered trade union federation to the center of Israeli life; at the same time, he served in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, remaining directly engaged in the political arena.

I sat with Peretz this past July in his Histadrut office, sharing a quick lunch of roast chicken at his desk. Perched behind his shoulder was a statue of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister. (Ben-Gurion ran the Histadrut himself before leading Israel; in fact, he helped create the Histadrut as a transmission belt to build future national leaders.)

On this day, Peretz had to race off to the Knesset for the final day of the session. Gideon Saar, the Likud faction head, was promoting legislation that would disallow a Histadrut head from simultaneously serving in the Knesset, a bill clearly aimed at Peretz (and at burying a key part of Ben-Gurion's legacy). Peretz lost his last-minute negotiations to stop the bill, partly due to the complicity of Shimon Peres and others in the Labor faction.

Since the Labor primary last week, Saar has been making statements in the Israeli papers about Peretz's extremism. Peretz believes that this is out of fear of the threat he represents to the Likud party. "Gideon Saar told me," Peretz said in July, "'we know that you are going to take votes from us.'"

Peretz, who is already being attacked by his opponents for being soft on security, served in the army and was severely wounded -- today, he walks with a limp from a war wound -- but he comes to the political stage with a security message wrapped in a domestic agenda. In speeches this past week to commemorate the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peretz spoke about continuing Rabin's vision of a two-state solution.

He has simultaneously supported returning to the Oslo peace process and abandoning a mediated process in favor of direct negotiations with the Palestinians. Whichever route he takes, he is expected to aim for an agreement that ends Israel's West Bank occupation and shrinks the settlement enterprise substantially.

"I don't think that people can ignore what happens in this country," he argued. "One person told me when he visited his son in the army, his son said that his friend didn't have enough money for the bus and didn't have enough food at home, so he preferred to sell his army vacation ... I'm trying to explain that the free market is not permission to build a slave market in Israel.

When I try to explain [to businessmen] that 30 percent of Israeli workers earn less than 2000 shekels a month [about $420], they can't believe it. They think I'm talking about some third-world country."

Peretz's victory in the Labor primary has been compared to the political earthquake that elected Menachem Begin in 1977 and forced a realignment in Israeli politics, making Likud the party of government (except for the brief reigns of Barak and Rabin). Like the Reagan Democrats, Israeli working-class and middle-class voters, many of whom are Sephardic Jews of North African origin or Russian pensioners, voted for Likud only in part for its hawkish policies.

They were also looking for a political home that would accept them; the Likud made them feel welcome, even though the economic policies pursued by the Likud through the decades have increased poverty and inequality in Israel to the point where one in three Israeli children live in poverty.

Peretz figures that if he can get "five to ten seats from the Likud," he can form a government. He is also trusted and liked by the Israeli Arab sector, which has been burned by the Labor Party and largely votes for specifically Arab parties if it votes at all.

"I can only get stronger," Peretz told me this past summer. "We can start to see the real change in the public that someone who represents a different agenda, that Israel can accept a social issues general … In Israel we need somebody who looks at the peace process with peace glasses because generals look at the peace process with war glasses. They have to see what the security conditions are and I see the peace agreement as the most important security condition."

Jo-Ann Mort, who wrote about Amir Peretz for the American Prospect website and magazine recently, writes about Israel for a variety of publications and is the co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? published by Cornell University Press.

By the way-- the US could use a "Populist Hope" also-- there are a lot of parallels.

Now that Sharon is forming his own party, things get a bit more interesting...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=100...=top_world_news



Interesting snapshot of the electorate, and it shows Sharon must be worried that labor's new man Peretz would be a threat to anyone tied to Likud. It might very well be a good time for progressives to get involved here in the USA. Peretz Website does have a contribute link, but I really don't know what the rules are regarding foriegn contributions to Israeli candidates.

UPDATE:


Israeli Leader Ariel Sharon Reportedly Quitting Likud Party;
Labor Leaving Governing Coalition

By MARK LAVIE
The Associated Press

JERUSALEM - Israel's dovish Labor Party voted Sunday to pull out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, and Sharon reportedly decided to quit his Likud Party to set up a new movement beginning a campaign for elections expected in March.

Sharon is expected to take several prominent Likud Cabinet ministers with him to his new party, along with some from Labor possibly including its ousted chairman Shimon Peres.

Advancing Israel's election from the original November 2006 date would likely sideline Mideast peace moves and counter whatever momentum was gained from Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, completed in September.

Sharon's Gaza pullout, a dramatic about-face after decades of settlement building and expansion in the West Bank and Gaza fractured his party. Rebels in the Likud faction in parliament withheld support from his initiatives.

On Monday, Sharon is to ask Israel's president to disperse the parliament, setting in motion a process leading to elections in March, Army Radio reported.

Increasingly frustrated by the Likud rebellion, Sharon decided on the daring step of leaving the party he helped create in 1973, according to Likud activists. That would leave Likud as a bastion of hardline opponents to compromise with the Palestinians.

"I regret Sharon's decision to leave and would have preferred that he continue his struggle within Likud," said Ehud Yatom, a Likud member of parliament who was among the leaders of the internal rebellion against Sharon. Party leaders said they received the news from Sharon himself.

Polls in weekend Israeli newspapers showed that if Sharon remains in Likud, it would maintain much of its present strength, while Labor's newly elected leader Amir Peretz would lead his party to a healthy increase. Sharon at the head of a new party would scramble the electoral picture, with Likud as the main loser, according to the polls.

Peretz had pushed for Labor to leave Sharon's government.

Separately, Palestinians are concentrating on their own parliamentary election, set for Jan. 25, with the violent Islamic group Hamas running candidates for the first time and posing a significant challenge to the ruling Fatah Party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah primary elections began Saturday in the desert oasis of Jericho, and as expected, the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat won the nomination for the town's only seat, election officials said Sunday.

This month's surprise election of Peretz, a fiery union leader, as head of Labor accelerated the spiral toward early elections.

Labor joined Sharon's coalition government in January to buttress support for the Gaza pullout, but in one of his first moves, Peretz extracted letters of resignation from the eight Labor Cabinet ministers last week.


In a brief reference to Mideast peacemaking, Peretz said he favors a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital and opposes permitting Palestinian refugees to return to Israel an attempt to counter efforts to portray him as an extreme dove who would make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians.

He also said that creation of a Palestinian state is in Israel's interest as well as the Palestinians'.

-------------

Looks like RD and I posted simultaneously!

Fears for Peace Plan as Sharon Rejects Territorial Concessions

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
23 November 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...ticle328705.ece

QUOTE

The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected the "false" concept of "territory for peace", which underpinned Israel's negotiating strategy with the Palestinians up to and including the failed Camp David talks in 2000, one of his top strategists said.

On the first day of Mr Sharon's new breakaway party Eyal Arad, a senior strategic adviser, said he had substituted the idea of "security for independence" as his approach to future talks with the Palestinians.

QUOTE

The startling assertion that Mr Sharon repudiates not only the Oslo accords but the concept of "land for peace" that underpinned them will fuel Palestinian fears that he is seeking to redraw the internationally agreed road map to peace, to which Mr Sharon insists he is committed.

It may also be taken as an implicit assurance to the right-wing supporters he seeks to lure away from Likud that Israel can retain much greater territory than that defined by its pre-1967 borders as long as the Palestinians get an independent sovereign state at the end of a process.

Mr Arad also - and in emphatic terms - echoed previous declarations by Mr Sharon himself, saying that such a process could not begin before "total dismantling of all terrorist apparatus" by the Palestinian leadership.

Mr Arad's remarks came as a series of instant polls on the Sharon breakaway showed him leading Israel's biggest party if the election happened today, with up to 33 seats. A Haaretz-Dialog survey showed his new party at 30 seats, with the Labour party under its new leader Amir Peretz at 26 and Likud, still to elect a leader, trailing at 15.

QUOTE

Although partly theoretical, Mr Arad's formulation will also be seen as being in tune with continued expansion of settlements and the routing of sections of the separation barrier inside the occupied West Bank, ahead of any negotiations with the Palestinians.

The road map, sponsored by the US, EU, Russia and the UN and agreed - subject to reservations - by Israel, says that a settlement should be based in part on "the principle of land for peace" and UN resolution 242, which requires the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict."

The road map also requires not that the Palestinian leadership actually completes "the dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure" but that it "begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations" aimed at doing so.

Mr Arad's remarks came during an explanation of how Mr Sharon differed both from the far-right Likud colleagues he deserted on Monday - in abandoning the "morally just dream" of a Greater Israel and accepting the need for a Palestinian state - and from those who support the basic strategy of the Oslo accords.

Though Mr Arad did not say so, these include the new Labour leader Amir Peretz, something that might militate against the latter agreeing to a post-election coalition with Mr Sharon in the event that such an opportunity arises.



Mr Arad insisted that what Palestinians sought was not really territories that they could control and run in the form of the Camp David proposal but independence, which the road map envisaged.

In Israel, Labor's new leader brings upheaval Amir Peretz, 54, aims to recast old politics to aid working class By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | December 1, 2005

Change a few words and locations, and these could be the words of an American presidential candidate saying something worth listening too. I keep waiting...

Peres shows his true colors, supporting Sharon, the repudiation of the Oslo Accords, the rejection of "Land for Peace"; and the relegation of the Palestinians to a non-viable discontiguous, shrunken, unacceptable, "state".

If ever a "populist" democratic candidate where to emerge in the US, no doubt there would be analogous Democratic party defections to the Right.

Peres quits Labour to back Sharon



Shimon Peres said Ariel Sharon was taking the right step towards peace
Veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres has quit the Labour Party and announced his support for his long-time rival, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Mr Peres said he had taken the difficult decision because Mr Sharon was the person with the best chance of forging peace with the Palestinians.

Mr Peres, 82, did not say whether he would join Mr Sharon's new Kadima party ahead of Israel's election in March.

Mr Peres lost the Labour leadership in a contest earlier this month.

Trade union leader Amir Peretz has succeeded him at the helm of Labour.

Mr Peres has stood for his party's leadership on and off for the last three decades.

Mr Sharon formed his centrist party early this month after quitting the governing right-of-centre Likud he helped establish in 1973.

Even if he does not join Kadima, Mr Peres is expected to campaign for Mr Sharon and to be offered a cabinet post if the prime minister remains in power after the election, says the BBC's Matt Prodger in Jerusalem.


"My period of service within the [Labour] party has come to an end," Mr Peres told a press conference in Tel Aviv.

The former prime minister said he would "dedicate the next years to the supreme effort to making peace between our neighbours and us, while keeping peace within us".

"His [Sharon's] mind is set to continue the peace process and he is open to new ideas for peace. I support his election to seek these aims."

Several opinion polls in Israeli newspapers have suggested that Kadima, the Hebrew word for "forward", could win the election.

On Tuesday, an ally of Mr Sharon's in Kadima, Meir Sheetrit, said the party would try to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians in its first term in power.

Our correspondent says Mr Peres' defection from Labour is likely to strengthen the centre ground in Israeli politics.

Mr Peres said his decision to leave Labour - the party that has been his political home for decades - had not been an easy one.

"My concern is deep and my hope is high," he said, pointing to threats to Israeli security from Iran and from "fanatical terrorism".

Mr Peres has supported Mr Sharon in the recent past.

As leader of the Labour Party, Mr Peres allied with Mr Sharon to help him overcome parliamentary opposition to withdrawing soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Sharon 'sees wall as Israel's new border'
By Donald Macintyre
December 02, 2005

A senior ally of Ariel Sharon has given the most explicit indication yet that the Israeli Prime Minister envisages the 425-mile separation barrier as the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

Government spokesmen frequently claim that the barrier was built solely for security reasons and could be removed or rerouted.

But the Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, who is helping prepare the programme of Mr Sharon's new Kadima party, told a legal conference in Caesarea: "One does not have to be a genius to see that the fence will have implications for the future border. This is not the reason it was built, but it could have political implications."

The Palestinian leadership said this was evidence that the barrier, which puts 8 per cent of the West Bank, including the major settlement blocs, on the Israeli side, was an effort to pre-empt free negotiations on any final peace deal.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said: "This is a very dangerous development and undermines the chances of permanent status negotiations. This proves Israel wants to dictate and not negotiate."

But leaders of Likud, the main hard-right party badly weakened by the desertion of Mr Sharon, are likely to attack the remarks as implying that the Prime Minister is ready to concede up to 90 per cent of the West Bank, including the settlements east of the barrier, unilaterally or in negotiations with the Palestinians.

A member of Israel's Supreme Court, Mishael Cheshin was said by the daily Haaretz to have cited the security arguments used by government lawyers facing challenges to the barrier route and told Ms Livni at the conference: "That is not what you have contended in court."

The high court decided two parts of the barrier should be brought closer to Israel's pre-1967 borders than it had planned. Other sections - especially that which threatens to encircle Jerusalem and cut the occupied Arab east of the city from the West Bank - still present massive stumbling blocks to negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. Haim Ramon, another prominent member of Mr Sharon's new party who deserted from Labour, has already said the section around Jerusalem was built for political rather than merely security reasons.

He said the route "also makes Jerusalem more Jewish", adding: "The safer and more Jewish Jerusalem will be, it can serve as a true capital of the state of Israel."

The Palestinians have made it repeatedly clear that east Jerusalem, seized by Israeli in the 1967 war, must the capital of any future Palestinian state.

Likud members from peripheral towns defect to Peretz camp