Sharon Offers Foreign Ministry to Political Rival Netanyahu

Mr. Sharon's opposition to the Oslo accords has raised suspicions on the left that he harbors a secret plan to destroy them, and with them the possibility of a Palestinian state.

He is suspected by the right of having gone soft since his days as a general and defense minister. According to that theory, he embraced Labor to gain the political leverage to resist his own rightist base.

Mr. Netanyahu compromised with the Palestinians as prime minister in the late 1990's and, unlike Mr. Sharon, even shook Mr. Arafat's hand. But having repeatedly criticized Mr. Sharon as not doing enough to destroy Mr. Arafat's governing Palestinian Authority, he has become the favorite of the hard right within Likud.

If Mr. Sharon's coalition falls and elections are called, Mr. Netanyahu may be able to beat him in a primary. But turning down the post of foreign minister would carry some political risk, since he may be seen as serving his own ambition rather than the country in a time of crisis.

Likud politicians speculated that the two men had discussed some arrangement under which Mr. Sharon would eventually step aside in Mr. Netanyahu's favor.

On his last day as Mr. Sharon's defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the Labor chairman, today kept up his criticism of the government, declaring that it was time for Israel to press diplomacy with the Palestinians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/international/middleeast/02ISRA.html