A split is developing in the Liberal Party wing of Likud over Sunday’s Cabinet decision to retain former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon as a member of the Ministerial Defense Committee.
A meeting of the Liberal Party Knesset caucus was demanded yesterday by former Cabinet Minister Yitzhak Berman to hear from Liberals sitting in the Cabinet as to why they failed to oppose Premier Menachem Begin’s proposal to keep Sharon on the key committee. Sharon was forced to resign as Defense Minister as a result of the findings of the commission of inquiry into the Beirut refugee camps massacre which the Cabinet accepted in full.
Berman, a former Energy Minister, resigned, from Begin’s government after the massacres in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps last September 16-18 because Begin adamantly opposed a judicial inquiry into Israel’s possible culpability. The commission was set up only after tremendous public pressure was brought to bear on the Prime Minister.
Berman announced that when the issue of Sharon’s continued membership on the Defense Committee is raised in the Knesset plenary tomorrow he will vote with the opposition. Another Liberal MK, Dror Seigerman, said he would do the same. The decision to retain Sharon was adopted by the Cabinet at Begin’s insistence. The vote was 6-1. A number of ministers abstained.
Begin’s position surprised observers inasmuch as it was assumed that he was not averse to seeing Sharon out of the frontline of policy-makers. Cabinet sources said they knew nothing of any agreement between Begin and Sharon with respect to his appointment to the committee. They attributed the decision either to party politics or to Begin’s personal conviction that Sharon has been sufficiently punished and it was time he had some compensation.
The Liberal Party, meanwhile, is trying to find a candidate to replace Berman as their sixth minister. They have not made an issue of this until now. But Herut is about to receive an additional Cabinet portfolio with the nomination of Moshe Arens to succeed Sharon, thereby enlarging its representation in the government.
A new ministerial candidate is expected to be named by the Liberal Party’s Central Committee when it meets in two weeks. The principal candidates are Sara Doron, chairman of the party’s Knesset faction, Pessah Grupper, who is Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and Moshe Meron, a former MK.
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