MIDDLE EAST: Israel's prime minister has won a political reprieve, but his real problem remains his Gaza pull-out plan, writes Peter Hirschberg, in Jerusalem
Pummelled for months by his political opponents, Ariel Sharon seemed like a punch-drunk boxer on the ropes, weaving too slowly to evade the inevitable knock-out blow. His once broad ruling coalition had disintegrated, leaving him with only 40 seats in the 120-seat parliament. At least half of his ruling Likud party was in open rebellion over his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Politicians, scenting an early election, were vying to see who could most accurately predict the date on which it would be held.
The prime minister's main initiative in his second term - his pull-out plan - was in danger of slipping into oblivion.
But it was Mr Sharon, again proving his political deftness, who bounced back on Thursday night to outmanoeuvre his opponents and floor them. Going into a vote in his party over his demand to begin coalition negotiations with the centre-left Labour party, the Israeli leader was reeling from a string of embarrassing defeats inside the Likud. But when the ballots of the party's 3,000-strong central committee had been counted, Mr Sharon emerged with over 60 per cent - a resounding victory which paves the way for a governing coalition with Labour.
It was a vote Mr Sharon could not afford to lose. Defeat would have almost certainly forced him to go for an early election, which could have sparked a leadership challenge inside his own party from the likes of his more hardline finance minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. Now he might even survive a full term, until the end of 2006 - a rarity in the fractious world of Israeli politics.
While the vote was an internal Likud one, its significance goes far beyond the party. Without Labour, which enthusiastically backs a Gaza pull-out, Mr Sharon knew that he would not have a government and would be unable to implement his withdrawal plan. Now a Likud-Labour partnership dramatically raises the chances that Israel will pull out of Gaza next year and that Mr Sharon, who built many of the Jewish settlements, will begin the momentous process of tearing them down.
In May, the Likud voted overwhelmingly against the Gaza plan. In August, it voted to bar Mr Sharon from bringing Labour into his government. But in late November the equation changed when the 15-seat centrist Shinui party departed from the coalition over the budget, leaving the prime minister with a coalition comprising only the 40 seats of his own party. The choice Mr Sharon presented to his party colleagues was simple, the answer compelling: public opinion polls, he pointed out, showed the Likud emerging from early elections with fewer seats. This time round, the party got the message.
The Likud "rebels" - the name given to party lawmakers opposed to the Gaza withdrawal plan - who once threatened to topple Mr Sharon have been tamed. Several weeks ago they made up almost half of the party's 40 lawmakers. Today they are but a handful of recalcitrants, neutralised and unable to threaten the prime minister.
Mr Sharon wasted little time after his victory, phoning the Labour leader, Mr Shimon Peres, yesterday to invite him to coalition negotiations. He also contacted two other religious parties for coalition talks.
The two old men of Israeli politics - Mr Sharon is 76 and Mr Peres 81 - want to finalise a coalition deal quickly. A third coalition partner might well be the small ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism, giving Mr Sharon a coalition of around 65 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
Once the new government is sworn in, its first order of business will be passing the budget for 2005. The next challenge will be far more formidable - uprooting 21 settlements, and some 7,000 settlers, in Gaza, and another four settlements in the West Bank.
The inclusion of Labour in a coalition, along with the Palestinian elections on January 9th, could provide a major boost for the moribund peace process. After the death of Yasser Arafat last month, Mr Sharon intimated that he would be willing to forego the unilateral dimension of his pull-out plan and co-ordinate it with the Palestinians. However, he will not make any substantive moves until he knows who will succeed Mr Arafat.
With Mr Sharon and Mr Peres both strongly committed to a Gaza pull-out, coalition troubles are likely to arise only once it has been carried out, when Labour begins demanding that the prime minister implement a much more sweeping evacuation of settlements in the West Bank than the one he now plans.