Sharon Gets Go-Ahead to Invite Labor Into Fold

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday won permission from his conservative Likud Party to invite the left-leaning Labor Party and smaller religious parties into the government, a merger that would help him avoid early elections and keep a planned Gaza Strip withdrawal on track.

The Likud’s nearly 3,000-member Central Committee, the party’s main policymaking organ, voted by a hefty margin to allow Sharon to begin formal negotiations aimed at adding Labor and two Orthodox Jewish parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, to the government.

The result represented a significant boost for the prime minister, who had appeared at risk of losing control of his party. Four months earlier, the same body had stung Sharon by barring talks with Labor.

Sharon is expected to begin coalition negotiations quickly because his government stands on shaky legs, having just 40 votes in the 120-member parliament, or Knesset. Bringing in Labor, which controls 22 seats, and the two religious parties, with 16 more, would give Sharon a commanding base of nearly two-thirds of the Knesset.

The Likud vote does not guarantee that Sharon can broaden his government easily. Labor is locked in an internal struggle over who will be its next leader. That battle, and the left-leaning party’s differences with Likud’s free-market economic policies, may complicate the debate among Labor members over whether to join the government in order to safeguard the withdrawal plan.

Labor Chairman Shimon Peres is eager to join a government with Likud but faces challenges from rivals who have indicated that they would prefer confronting Sharon in national elections. Peres angered some party members by suggesting that Labor would remain in a unity government until November 2006, when national elections are next scheduled.

Labor’s Central Committee is expected to discuss the coalition talks during a meeting scheduled for Sunday.

Last week, Sharon expelled the centrist Shinui Party, his remaining coalition partner, after its members defied him on a parliamentary vote over the proposed 2005 budget. Two rightist parties were dismissed from or left the coalition earlier this year out of opposition to the withdrawal plan, which calls for evacuating all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four others in the northern West Bank next year.

The departure of Shinui left Sharon with such a narrow base that he faced the threat of being toppled in a no-confidence vote or unable to win passage of the budget by March, which also would trigger elections.

The prime minister has said he must expand his government to avoid calling new elections, a process that would probably delay or derail the withdrawal. Elections also could spell a loss of seats for the Likud, a risk that Sharon hoped would bring members to heel.

All of the party’s top ministers -- including his frequent rival, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- backed Sharon’s bid to expand the government. The vote proceeded after a district court refused an appeal by two opponents in the Likud who sought to have it postponed.

It remained unclear whether Sharon would succeed in enlisting both religious parties. Shas has 11 Knesset seats but currently is opposed to the settlement withdrawal on grounds that it is to be carried out unilaterally by Israel rather than through agreement with the Palestinians. Labor has said it would not join with a party that opposed the withdrawal.

But Sharon increasingly has voiced his willingness to coordinate the evacuation, involving about 8,500 Jewish residents, with the Palestinians if a moderate leadership emerges from the Jan. 9 elections to replace the late Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.

The Bush administration views the withdrawal as an integral part of the so-called road map, a diplomatic initiative sponsored by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations that is aimed at achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the pullout is vehemently opposed by settlers and their right-wing political allies, including many hard-liners in Likud. Those dissidents have been at the center of an intraparty rebellion, and they have defeated Sharon in key votes related to the withdrawal in recent months.

The opponents accuse Sharon of acting as an autocrat and fear that Labor’s inclusion in the government would accelerate calls to dismantle settlements in the West Bank beyond the four tiny communities slated for evacuation.

The vote also carried high stakes for Sharon. Some commentators said a loss not only could have forced early national elections but also could have left Sharon without a party to lead.

In May, Sharon was defeated inside the Likud when the party’s rank and file voted overwhelmingly against the withdrawal proposal. Three months later came the Central Committee vote to block the coalition talks with Labor.

Analyst Nadav Eyal, writing in the daily Maariv newspaper, said before Thursday’s vote that another loss inside Likud “could bury Sharon under a pile of rubble, after which it will be hard to get up.”