Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres may leave the Labor Party that ousted him as its leader and join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new centrist list, a spokesman for Peres said yesterday.

The defection of the 82-year-old Peres would represent a vote of confidence by the Nobel peace laureate in Sharon's oft-repeated pledge to make "painful concessions" for peace with the Palestinians.

But the jury is out over whether Peres, branded a "loser" by Israeli political satirists for repeated defeats in national elections, would win or cost Sharon votes in Israel's March 28 ballot.
 
Israeli media reports said Sharon had offered Peres the job of peace envoy if the prime minister's new Kadima Party wins the general election, Israeli media reports said.

Speaking to Israeli reporters on Sunday, Peres said: "It is a very difficult decision, as it is so tied up with historic and other considerations. It will take me a day or two to decide."

While Peres enjoys wide popularity overseas, many Israelis have been disillusioned by the interim peace accords he championed in the early 1990s, agreements followed by a Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000.

"They very much want him," Yoram Dori, a spokesman for Peres, said about officials in Kadima. But he said no specific job had been discussed and Peres was "considering what would be the best way to contribute to Israel in the coming years".

"The Labor Party is something he built up and headed for 20 years. It's not a simple matter," Dori said.

'They don't want me in Labor'

A visibly stunned Peres, vice-premier in Sharon's coalition government, lost a Labor leadership election on November 9 to trade union chief Amir Peretz, whose decision to pull the party out of the cabinet reshuffled the political deck in Israel.

Faced with a far-right revolt in Likud over a unilateral Gaza pullout completed in September, Sharon opted to quit the party he co-founded and stake a claim to a middle ground.

The former general, accused by opponents of the withdrawal of having surrendered to Palestinian violence, has pledged to seek peace under a US-backed road map that charts a path towards a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

But he said there could be no talks on statehood until the Palestinians disarm militants under the peace plan, which also calls for a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Sharon and Peres, who have a combined age of 159, forged an alliance a year ago when Labor joined the Likud-led coalition to help the prime minister carry out the first evacuation of Jewish settlements from land Palestinians want for a state.

Opinion polls predict Kadima will bound past Labor and Likud in the coming election, ensuring Sharon, 77, will be back for a third term as prime minister, a post Peres has held twice.

To keep up the momentum and build on his constituency even before he formulates a full platform, Sharon has cast his net far and wide in search of allies to represent a broad cross-section of the Israeli public.

Peres was quoted as telling confidants "they don't want me in Labor." Labor officials have countered that they may name him honorary party president, a prospect he rejected in the past.

It was said that Peres is angry over what he claimed was ignored by new Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz.

Peretz, who realizes that Sharon's main goal in courting Peres is to undermine the new Labor chair, tried to mend matters on Sunday by phoning Peres to offer him the post of party president, which would be created especially for him and would include representing the party overseas.

(China Daily November 29, 2005)