Peres to quit Labor, join Sharon

By Rafael D. Frankel

JERUSALEM—Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the stalwart of Israel’s Labor Party and the longest serving member of the Knesset will quit Labor and party politics to join his long-time friend and political rival Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a potential new government, a top Sharon advisor told reporters Tuesday.

Though the advisor, Lior Horev, back-tracked, saying he was not in a position to speak for Peres, the cat was already out of the bag.

On Monday, in Barcelona, Peres told reporters: “My goal is to make peace and it doesn't matter with which party.” Many in Israel also feel his motivation stems from a feeling of betrayal at the hands of newly elected Labor Chairman Amir Peretz, whom Peres brought back into the party only to be defeated by him in primary elections.

The vice prime minister is currently in Spain attending a soccer match between a joint Israeli-Palestinian team and FC Barcelona sponsored by his Peres Center for Peace and is expected to make a formal announcement of his intentions when he returns to Israel Wednesday night.

Under a deal with Sharon, Peres would be a senior minister in charge of negotiations with the Palestinians and development of the Negev and Galilee regions of Israel in a new Sharon government. He would not, however, run as a member of Kadima for the Knesset, ending his record streak of serving in Israel’s parliament since 1959.

The seeds for Peres’s departure seem to have been laid on Nov. 20 at the final cabinet meeting of the government before it fell. “This is the beginning of the joint work between us,” Sharon told Peres at the time. “I won't let you turn away from completing the missions you are destined for. I'll call on your assistance in the future.”

The defection of Peres from Labor represents a coupe-de-gras for the prime minister who has wielded his influence and soaring poll numbers to pull stars from both the left and right of Israeli politics to join him in his new Kadima party. “Kadima” means “forward” in Hebrew.

Abraham Diskin, a professor of political science at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said Sharon’s political power has grown both from weak rivals and his capturing of the vast Israeli political center which has given up on the idea of real peace but has also accepted the inevitability of a Palestinian state.

“The alternative [candidates to Sharon] are not really very trustful or admired by most of the people, so compared to others, his personality shines,” Diskin said.

“People on the left gave up the idea of a rosy peace and people on the right gave up the idea of Greater Israel and [both] moved to the center. No one represents that better than Sharon himself, and now no one looks more reliable than Sharon,” he said.

Though the most high-profile defection to Kadima from Labor, Peres is not the first. Popular Knesset member Haim Ramon left Labor last week and Dalia Itzik, a close Peres ally, announced her decision Monday. Sharon has also taken with him 13 Knesset members from his old Likud party, including ministers Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni.

Sharon also received a boost Tuesday when Uriel Reichman, a founder of the secularist Shinui party and a well-known academic in Israel, bolted his party to join Kadima.

Assuming the latest polling numbers are correct, Sharon’s Kadima party will gain the most mandates in the March 28 elections, followed by Labor in second and the depleted Likud in a distant third. The prime minister will then decide whether to look left or right to form a new governing coalition.

Though it is believed his preference is to join with Labor again, Diskin said, one thing will be clear: “Sharon will hold all the cards in his hand and he will be the one to make the decisions.”

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel & The New York Daily News