Sources close to Sharon and Peres say that a long-term alliance or even a joint party is being discussed. Both men have their reasons. Sharon’s popularity among a broad cross section of Israelis grew enormously when he showed restraint after the suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub on June 1, refusing to launch a massive retaliation. For the same reason, Sharon is miserably weak in his own right-wing party. Just last week, he was heckled at a convention of Likud faithful, who prefer the “any means necessary” rhetoric of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It’s crazy because his approval rating is soaring, but Sharon is very vulnerable in Likud,” says one adviser. Peres, whose Oslo peace deal has disintegrated, is no longer the dominant force in his party. Labor will choose a new leader–not him–when it meets in September and will chart a course that must take into account Israeli disillusionment with failed peace programs.
The merger idea, floated in government corridors, got a boost last week when a Gallup poll showed that a joint Sharon-Peres list of candidates would grab 60 of Parliament’s 120 seats in the next election, scheduled for 2003. No party in Israel’s history has ever done that well; in today’s fractious Parliament the largest party, Labor, controls less than half that number.
Some analysts think the honeymoon will last only as long as fighting persists in the West Bank and Gaza: Peres and Sharon are far apart on the terms of conciliation with the Palestinians. But with peace talks a remote prospect, Sharon and Peres are busy buttering each other with praise. At a news conference with Secretary of State Colin Powell last month, Sharon said he viewed the alliance with Peres as a long-term relationship. “I hope that in its current composition, or something similar, it will continue afterwards until the elections of 2007,” he said. By then, Sharon will be 79 and Peres, 84–too old for divorce.
