Sharon survives vote of confidence after suicide bomb

Ariel Sharon found himself in the unlikely position of Yasser Arafat's defender as he attempted to patch together a new coalition government with the far right yesterday, resisting demands ranging from expelling the Palestinian leader to cancelling the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians.

Even as Mr Sharon survived three no-confidence votes in parliament, buying more time to put together a coalition and avoid calling early elections, at least three people were killed, and 32 injured, in a suicide bombing. The injured included two small children. The bomber set off his explosives in a shopping mall in Kfar Saba, just north of Tel Aviv.

The bombing was the first test for Mr Sharon's new Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, who was sworn in yesterday.

Earlier in the day two Palestinians were killed, one of them a wanted militant from the Hamas movement, when their car exploded in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Mr Sharon appeared to reject a conditional offer by his hardline predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu, to join the government as Foreign Minister. Mr Netanyahu had agreed to take the post if early elections were called. "Taking the nation to immediate elections would be irresponsible," Mr Sharon said.

Meanwhile, in an interview today, Mr Sharon said the international community should target Iran as soon as any attack on Iraq was over. He said Iran should be put under pressure because of its role as "a centre of world terror."

He said he had talked to the Vladimir Putin about Iran and said: "The free world should take all necessary steps to prevent irresponsible countries having weapons of mass destruction; Iran, Iraq and Libya is working on a nuclear weapon."

On the domestic front, Mr Netanyahu is the reason Mr Sharon is trying to put together a new coalition. If the Prime Minister called early elections his Likud Party would easily win, according to the polls ­ but first Mr Sharon would have to face party leadership elections against Mr Netanyahu, the outcome of which is not so clear cut.

In the world of Israeli right-wing politics, there are those who see Mr Sharon as a wet. Mr Netanyahu has won support by publicly criticising the Prime Minister for not being tough enough on the Palestinians.

It was from Mr Netanyahu that the demand for Mr Arafat to be expelled came ­ ironically, Mr Sharon was left to oppose Mr Arafat's expulsion yesterday, when it is something he has often pushed for himself.

There are grave fears for the future of the peace process under a right-wing government shorn of the restraining influence of the Labour Party, which walked out last week over a dispute about funding for Jewish settlements in the West Bank ­ though there was not much restraint, and the peace process is all but dead.

Mr Netanyahu is talking tough, though his detractors say it is only talk. But he is not the only danger to the peace process on the horizon.

Mr Sharon survived three no-confidence votes in the Knesset, but only after far-right members he is trying to persuade to join the government abstained.

If he is to avoid early elections, Mr Sharon will almost certainly need the support of the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu group of parties. Negotiators from the group have reportedly presented Mr Sharon with a list of conditions for joining the government that make Mr Netanyahu's demands look moderate.

They are said to want Mr Sharon to renounce the Oslo peace accords and declare the Palestinian Authority a "terrorist entity" ­ that would spell the end of the peace process. Mr Sharon appeared to reject those demands yesterday.

The National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu group opposes the formation of a Palestinian state, which the US has proposed as part of a peace plan.

* A 62-year-old university professor, Uzi Even, became the first declared homosexual to join the Knesset yesterday. Orthodox Jewish politicians walked out in protest when he took the podium to speak.