Sharon offers Netanyahu foreign minister's job

<br>JERUSALEM (AP) _ Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Friday with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his fiercest political rival, to offer him the post of foreign minister. <br><br>Israeli

Friday, November 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Friday with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his fiercest political rival, to offer him the post of foreign minister.

Israeli radio reports said Sharon invited Netanyahu to his sheep farm in the Negev desert to offer him the job. Haaretz newspaper said Netanyahu was unlikely to accept. Netanyahu's office refused to comment.

The moderate Labor Party, the largest faction in Sharon's coalition, quit the government this week over a budget dispute. That left the government without a majority and makes it vulnerable to a no-confidence vote in parliament that could force new elections. The walkout left vacant the foreign affairs portfolio, formerly held by Labor's Shimon Peres.

Sharon has said he will not change the basic policies of his government in an effort to woo extreme right parties into his coalition. The prime minister is looking to small, far-right parties in an attempt to maintain a viable coalition.

``I am on the way to forming a government with a different makeup,'' he said in Friday's edition of the Maariv newspaper.

He stressed that the ``policy lines will remain exactly the same policy lines and its goals won't change: war on terror, renewing political negotiations and reaching an agreement.''

Sharon's coalition now has only 55 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

One candidate for inclusion is the far-right National Union-Israel Beiteinu party, which has seven seats, enough to give the coalition a majority.

The party originally was part of Sharon's coalition when it formed last year, but later left amid policy disputes.

``The unity government was made up of right- and left-wing parties, and the National Union party signed on to the current guidelines,'' Cabinet member Danny Naveh said.

National Union legislators have said they want Sharon to distance himself from some policies they believe were implemented to appease the Labor Party.

The National Union party opposes negotiations with the Palestinians and favors annexing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands the Palestinians want for a future state. Some party members support ``transferring'' or expelling the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli newspapers reported that Sharon talked to U.S. administration officials on Thursday, and the Israeli leader gave assurances he would not make major policy changes.

The United States last week presented to Israel and the Palestinians a ``road map'' for peace, which calls for an end to the current violence and for the formation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The Labor Party leader, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, is leaving his post as defense minister, and Sharon has offered the position to former army chief of staff Shaul Mofaz.

Mofaz has a reputation as a hard-liner and oversaw the army's crackdown against the Palestinian uprising for most of the past two years.

Mofaz also has advocated exiling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Ben-Eliezer was considered more moderate.

In a move that signals the declining relations between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel has decided to put the military and civilian offices responsible for contacts with the Palestinians under one umbrella.

Israeli officials say the move is meant to make things more efficient for Palestinian security officials who coordinate with the army, and for Palestinian civilians who use the offices to obtain work permits, entry permits to Israel and other documents.

However, the moves also marks a step back from the system established in 1994 as part of the Oslo peace accords signed a year earlier.

``We were not informed about this decision and we are waiting for clarification from the Israeli side,'' said Jamil Tarifi, general coordinator of civil affairs for the Palestinians.

The military and civilian liaison offices were set up as Israel began handing over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Palestinian Authority rule. The offices were part of the transition from Israeli military rule that existed in the territories since Israel captured them in the 1967 Mideast War.

Israeli troops on Friday seized a leading member of the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, who is suspected of masterminding an October 21 suicide bombing in northern Israel in which 14 Israelis were killed, Israeli security sources said.

Islamic Jihad sources said soldiers tracked Said Tubasi, 22, to a cave in the hills near the West Bank town of Jenin, where he was hiding with another man wanted by the Israelis, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.