Sharon says unity government allows Israelis 'to stand together'

Ariel Sharon was taking the helm in Israel today with a vow to halt the wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence, supported by a broad-based coalition government designed to end years of political instability.

Sharon’s accession to the prime minister’s post was pending approval in the parliament of his 'national unity' government, but that was expected to be largely a formality.

Sharon already fulfilled his first campaign promise by stitching together a coalition from centre-left to far right with the support of solid majority among MPs.

The coalition will allow Israelis ‘‘to stand together, facing what at this moment poses the greatest danger the deteriorating state of security,’’ Sharon told his Likud Party today.

He said he would also seek to achieve peace with the Palestinians, but repeated his position that negotiations would begin ‘‘only after quiet will reign.’’

Sharon will have no grace period. The militant Islamic group Hamas threatened to greet Sharon, considered an archenemy by the Palestinians, with a series of suicide bombings.

A Hamas statement in Beirut yesterday said the first of those attacks was carried out on Sunday, when a Palestinian set off a bomb in the coastal city of Netanya, killing himself and three Israelis.

Sharon has blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for inciting his people to violence and failing to curb the militants. Israeli military commanders have charged that Arafat’s allies have been involved in attacks. Sharon has pledged not to resume peace talks with the Palestinians until the unrest ends.

Though he has not disclosed how he plans to confront the violence, Sharon hoped his new government would present a united front to shore up an Israeli populace battered by failed peace efforts and months of deadly clashes.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, the foreign minister, will sit at the same Cabinet table with the hawkish Rehavam Zeevi, the tourism minister, whose party advocates removing Palestinians from the West Bank.

Only gross mismanagement or extremist actions can topple him, said analyst Hanan Crystal. "The Labour Party can’t bring down the government," he said.

Sharon’s Likud party has only 19 seats in the 120 member Knesset, second in size to Labour’s 23. The two major parties were decimated by an election reform enacted in 1996, which allowed Israelis to vote separately for prime minister and parliament.