Labor Party head shifts view on national unity government

JERUSALEM, Sept. 21 (JTA) – Israeli Labor Party leader Ehud Barak said this week that he would consider joining a national unity government, but only if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed his policies. A national unity government could provide a much-needed consensus to restart the negotiations with the Palestinians that have been suspended since March. Speaking after meeting Sunday with Public Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani, who initiated the idea, Barak said that he would only consider joining a national unity government if the current government made a “180-degree turn” from its present policies regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. There will be something to discuss “when the prime minister reaches the conclusion that his policy of the last 16 months is leading Israel on the slope to an unnecessary war,” said Barak. His comments marked a slight shift from his previous opposition to a unity government. Since replacing former Prime Minister Shimon Peres at the helm of the Labor Party in June, the former army chief of staff had dismissed the idea, calling the policies of the governing coalition a “failure.” Several months ago, Netanyahu raised the idea of a national unity government as part of a call for accelerated final-status talks with the Palestinians. But he was far cooler to the idea Sunday, when he told reporters accompanying him on a trip to Austria that he would consider a unity government only when Labor shows a willingness to put “national interest first and foremost.”