Israel's Barak suffers double political blow

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak suffered a double blow at a turning point in Middle East peacemaking yesterday when his foreign minister quit and parliament took a first step towards early elections.

Foreign Minister David Levy, 62, carried out his threat to resign, accusing Barak of making too many concessions to the Palestinians at last month’s Camp David peace summit while getting nothing in return. The summit ended without a deal. An hour after Levy’s announcement, the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament, voted 61-51 with six abstentions to dissolve itself.

It was a preliminary vote – with the decisive further votes likely to be months away – but the result, enough to topple Barak in a future no-confidence vote, underscored his political weakness. While voicing regret at Levy’s departure, Barak, 58, exuded confidence, telling reporters he would redouble efforts to forge a new coalition dedicated to ending 52 years of conflict with Israel’s Arab neighbours and boosting the economy.

While yesterday’s defeat was a symbolic setback for Barak, it had no immediate formal impact because the proposal must be passed to a parliamentary committee for consideration and would need three more votes to become law. “The elections are much farther away than you think,” Barak insisted. “We may have three months to try and consolidate either the peace negotiations or the government and this may be the 90 days of the most important period in the present Israeli agenda,” Barak said in English.

Elected in May 1999 to a four-year term, Barak lost his parliamentary majority last month when his left-right coalition crumbled on the eve of his departure for Camp David.

Levy said he submitted his resignation, due to take effect in 48 hours, after Barak failed to forge a unity government between their left-centre One Israel faction and the rightist Likud party, its main rival. “I am very, very afraid for the future. I really wish that there was the responsibility and the wisdom to form a national unity government,” Levy said. Levy singled out for criticism Barak’s readiness at Camp David to consider sharing sovereignty with Palestinians over Arab East Jerusalem. Reuters