Word: likud
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Tuesday, Ariel Sharon lead Likud to a commanding 37 seats, making him the first incumbent prime minister in almost two decades to win reelection. The win allows him to select the coalition partners of his choice, but the prime minister is refusing the option of building a narrow coalition with Likud's natural allies among the far-right and religious parties. Instead, to the consternation of his own party's base, Sharon is bending over backwards to make dove Amram Mitznah his senior coalition partner...
...easy to see why; Labor activists see rejoining Sharon in government as the kiss of death for the traditional party of peace, because such coalitions typically agree to avoid taking positions in the areas that most sharply divide their members - and in the case of Labor and Likud, those differences run to the fundamentals of what is required for peace with the Palestinians. Mitznah took over party leadership from former defense minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer precisely because Labor had lost its independent identity while serving as the junior partner in Sharon's security-oriented coalition. Mitznah campaigned on calls...
...interests in the Middle East and beyond inevitably put Washington into conflict with Sharon's political base, even if not necessarily with the prime minister himself. The U.S. has, for example, insisted that Israel refrain from expelling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from the occupied territories - a demand popular among Likud supporters, and even more so among the parties of the far right. The U.S. has also signaled its intention to press for a settlement freeze in those territories as part of a future peace effort, another position not shared by Sharon's base. And the Likud party voted last...
...Having the Labor Party as a coalition partner rather than right-wing and religious parties even more hard-line than Likud therefore gives Sharon the domestic political cover to make decisions unpopular with his own base but necessary for his ties with Washington. Indeed, Mitznah's presence in the government would make managing the relationship easier for the Bush administration too by offsetting any domestic pressure in the U.S. against restraining Israel's more hard-line instincts - better to have the Israeli government drawing its own red lines by virtue of a coalition agreement than imposing those red lines from...
...peace policies are somewhat vague, but his challenge to the privileges of the ultra-Orthodox who are exempt from military service and study at state expense has proved so popular that Shinui stands to win a potential king-making role with 14 seats. Lapid's dream ticket is a Likud-Labor-Shinui coalition, which would mark the first time in decades that Israel's secular parties were able to rule without paying disproportionate political tribute to the smaller religious parties...