Sharon attempts to woo Labour support

Ariel Sharon’s attempt to bring the opposition Labour party into his coalition government appeared to gain momentum today with party officials saying Labour leader Amram Mitzna agreed to continue talks.

Sharon and Mitzna met last night – their second meeting since Sharon won elections on January 28.

Labour spokeswoman Maya Ben-Gal said the two planned to meet for a third time on Friday.

Mitzna said during the campaign that he would not join a Sharon-led coalition unless it adopted Labour’s ideas on a future agreement with the Palestinians, including an immediate withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of many of the Jewish settlements.

It appears very unlikely Sharon, the architect of Jewish settlement expansion, would agree to those demands.

After last night’s meeting, the Labour leader suggested there was some common ground. “If in our previous meeting I said that there was nothing to talk about – this time there is room for another meeting in an attempt to find shared positions,” he said.

Sharon recently met Palestinian officials, after prolonged periods without contacts, leading to speculation he was trying to portray himself as a centrist to woo Labour.

Without Labour, Sharon will have difficulty moving toward a US sponsored peace plan, opposed by his traditional allies, hawkish and religious parties.