TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon succeeded in forming a new coalition and intends to present his new ministers for Knesset approval next week.
That coalition "will lead the State of Israel," he told his Likud Party's convention in Tel Aviv Wednesday evening. Two hours earlier the aging key figure in a coalition of small ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv, decided to join Sharon's coalition.
The governing coalition will thus comprise the Likud's 40 Knesset members, Labor's 19 and Torah Judaism's five in the 120 seat parliament. Two or more lawmakers who have become fairly independent since their election two years ago are also likely to support his government.
This coalition, providing it holds together, should see through a bill providing for the eviction and compensation of thousands of settlers who live in the Gaza Strip and in four settlements in the northern West Bank whom Sharon wants to evacuate as of July.
The coalition should also approve the government's budget for 2005 or else the government will automatically fall at the end of March.
Once the compensation bill is passed, Sharon will ask his cabinet to decide to implement the pullback plan.
Sharon fired opposing ministers last June in order to have a majority for a decision "in principle" on the withdrawal. Under the new setup he seems assured of a majority in the cabinet.
Labor will assign eight ministers, all of whom support the pullback and Sharon will co-opt two more ministers of his own Likud party. He is expected to bring in people who support the pullback so he stands to have 16 ministers who will vote for the pullback in a cabinet of 21 ministers.
Torah Judaism is joining the coalition but not the cabinet. That faction has traditionally refrained from joining the cabinet table so as not to share collective responsibility for religious transgressions and has kept out of peace and security issues.
It is joining the coalition for a three-month trial period, enough to pass the budget and the evacuation and compensation bills.
During this time it will check whether the government fulfills its commitment to restore religious services that have been curtailed and maintain the independence of the ultra-orthodox education system. Torah Judaism Knesset Member Israel Eichler said they want the government to enact a law guaranteeing their schools' independence so that no one could challenge that in the High Court of Justice.
Whether they stay in the coalition after the three months period "depends on the government's actions," Eichler said.
Torah Judaism's support would shatter what could otherwise be perceived as a dividing line between Israelis who favor the pullback -- mainly secular Jews and Arabs, and those who oppose it -- mostly orthodox Jews but some secular Jews as well.
Torah Judaism is an ultra orthodox party of Ashkenazi Jews whose families came from Europe.
Sharon wanted to co-opt also the orthodox Shas party, of people whose families immigrated from Arab countries. However Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, opposes a unilateral pullback.
"Negotiations with Shas have not matured into an agreement, yet," Sharon told his party convention. He said he hoped they could conclude an agreement "if conditions change."
Sharon and the defense establishment would like to coordinate the pullback with the Palestinian Authority and that would depend, in part, on the results of Sunday's presidential elections there.
Earlier this week Sharon criticized Likud Knesset members who tried to dissuade Torah Judaism from joining the coalition. Torah Judaism legislator Moshe Gafni said some ministers did so too in private conversations.
Failure to form a new coalition would have forced Sharon to compromise with the hawks in his party who oppose the withdrawal or fight it out and possibly go for new elections.
The fight within the Likud is not over yet through Likud Knesset Member Ronnie Bar-On told United Press International he was confident of a majority for the new coalition. In a worst case scenario the dovish Yahad party would tip the scales. "They certainly won't vote against (the coalition),' Bar-On said. Yahad has tacitly supported Sharon to ensure the pullback.
The hawks have not given up and Agriculture Minister Israel Katz told UPI he would vote against the pullback in the cabinet though he supports enlarging the cabinet.
Another Likud hawk, Knesset Member Ehud Yatom, told UPI, "We've got to sit and think what to do" to prevent the withdrawal.
The government has meanwhile moved to crack down on hawkish settlers who advocated fierce resistance to the army and called on soldiers to disobey orders.
The move comes after settlers Monday battled soldiers who tried to evacuate two uninhabited caravans near the settlement of Yitzhar south of Nablus.
Security men were stoned, a border policeman was wounded, army and police vehicles were damaged and a soldier called upon his comrades to disobey orders.
The soldier who was on customary leave given before discharge but put on his uniform and called for disobedience. Wednesday he was jailed for 28 days.
Since he was on leave and did not receive an order to evacuate the caravans he could not be charged with disobeying an order. Instead he was accused of unbecoming behavior.
The Justice Ministry asked police to investigate Daniela Weiss, one of the most extreme founders of the settler movement who fought eviction and Noam Livnat, the brother of Education Minister Limor Livnat, who was collecting signatures of soldiers pledging not to evacuate settlers.
Sharon Wednesday met soldiers of the 890th paratrooper battalion who clashed with the settlers near Yitzhar.
At the meeting in an army base north of Ramallah Sharon told the soldiers he had seen the pictures of the clash.
"I heard the curses and insults and the incitement against the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), against the commanders, against the soldiers, against the police personnel. ... Don't take it personally," he said. He himself had commanded that battalion when he was in the army.
"The call to refusal can lead to an historic rift in the entire Jewish world, and not only in Israel. Whoever calls to refuse or to oppose (the pullback) with force and
violence is wrong, mistaken and is endangering our very existence in this place," Sharon said.
"Whoever raises his hand to a soldier or police officer or member of the security forces, whoever organizes refusal, whoever threatens -- we will act against him forcefully....
"Don't let them hurt you," Sharon continued.
"We will struggle against this phenomenon. There can be no attacks on any part of the security establishment. It cannot be that a minority will try to dictate and use violence in order to enforce its ideas, opinions and laws on the majority. They will not dictate their laws on the entire nation," he stressed.
