Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today said he will try to create a unity government after official election results gave his Likud party a resounding victory over its left-wing rivals.
In a surprise development, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak agreed to become the first Arab leader to meet the right-wing premier after he forms his government, Israeli officials said.
Despite his triumphant election victory, Israel's system of proportional representation ensures Mr Sharon faces a daunting task stitching together a new governing coalition.
Likud virtually doubled its representation in parliament from 19 seats to 37, while Labour, the architects of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, fell to 19 seats from 25.
Fellow peace champions Meretz saw their parliamentary representation shrink from 10 to six. Party leader Mr Yossi Sarid resigned after the humiliating defeat.
The long dominant Labour party faced the further ignominy of seeing the centrist Shinui party nipping at its heels, with 15 MPs in the 120-seat parliament.
The defiantly secular party was the other big winner of the elections, rocketing from six seats on a platform of ending the privileges and control over social life of Israel's ultra-Orthodox community.
Reluctant to corral himself into a narrow far-right government, Mr Sharon issued an impassioned plea for centrists to join a broad coalition as he delivered a sombre victory speech at Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv.
"I will talk to all the Zionist parties and call on them to enter in a national unity government which will be as broad as possible," Mr Sharon said, insisting there was no room for celebration.
"The differences between us are dwarfed by the murderous hatred of the terror organizations towards anything Israeli and Jewish, by the threat of war in the Gulf and strikes against Israel, by the economic crisis that is ripping Israeli society apart."
But Labour leader Mr Amram Mitzna immediately ruled out rejoining Mr Sharon in government after an uncomfortable 22 months of cohabitation with the hardline premier which ended late last year.
"I have no intention of serving as an alibi in a government (headed by Sharon), of renouncing our hopes and our path in exchange for ministerial portfolios," Mr Mitzna said after conceding defeat.
The Labour leader said the result would herald a new era in opposition to regroup after the party was strained by internal squabbles over the collapse of the peace process it crafted and still champions.
But Shinui leader Mr Tommy Lapid responded more positively to Mr Sharon's appeal, saying that his party might be ready to go back on an election pledge to stay out of any coalition with religious parties, at least temporarily.
AFP