ISRAEL: The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, presented his new rightwing cabinet to the parliament yesterday, announcing that his first order of business would be tackling the ailing economy.
This appeared to be an indication that trying to resuscitate the shattered peace process would not be high on the agenda of his new government.
Mr Sharon, whose four-party coalition includes two parties which enthusiastically back settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and strongly oppose a Palestinian state, again trotted out his willingness to make "painful compromises" for peace. But as usual, he remained vague.
Any return to peace talks, he insisted, would have to be preceded by "a cessation of terror and incitement", fundamental reform of the Palestinian Authority and a change in the current Palestinian leadership, which, for the prime minister means the sidelining of Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Sharon made no reference to the peace road-map, backed by the US, EU, UN and Russia, and there is no mention of it in the policy guidelines of the new government. His approach to the diplomatic process, he said, would be in line with a speech he made in December last year in the coastal town of Herzliya, in which he spoke of a demilitarised Palestinian state on dislocated swaths of land in the West Bank.
If Mr Sharon sticks to this vision, he is unlikely to find a Palestinian willing to negotiate with him. Not surprisingly, Palestinian leaders yesterday were highly critical of the new government. "It is a government that will serve settlement activities and undermine the road-map plan," Palestinian cabinet minister Mr Saeb Erekat said.
The new leader of the opposition, Labor Chairman Mr Amram Mitzna, said he expected the prime minister to continue talking of a settlement with the Palestinians, but to take few active measures.
Mr Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the post of finance minister yesterday.