JERUSALEM When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left the Likud - the party he established more that 30 years ago - formed another one and set the nation on an election track, he caused no less than a political earthquake. No less, but no more, either.
It wasn't the "Big Bang" that some envisaged, that cosmic event that was supposed to create a totally new, and lasting, political order in Israel. The new party consists of Sharon himself, popular for the way he handled Israel's security and for the successful Gaza pullout, and a bunch of ambitious politicians who will now work together as long as he is around, but will be at one another's throats once he's gone or weakened. We have seen these one-time parties come and go.
The other dramatic event took place in the Labor Party, when Amir Peretz, the leader of the unions, won its chairmanship. The public discourse changed overnight, with socio-economic issues suddenly becoming prominent. Again, only time will tell whether this is just a temporary whim or a real change, and whether Israeli society has truly matured enough to put social issues before security and prefer a union leader to an ex-general as prime minister.
Nevertheless, these changes are important and welcome, because they open a window of opportunity for the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Sharon, with the Gaza withdrawal, broke an Israeli taboo on evacuation of settlements. His statements about endorsing the "road map," acceptance of a Palestinian state and the necessity of "painful compromises" in the future, position him squarely as someone who would pursue the peace process. And now that he has freed himself from the shackles of Benjamin Netanyahu and the other refusniks, he would have no internal reasons for not moving ahead.
With Amir Peretz and Labor, things are even simpler. Peretz announced his commitment to the Oslo process, and for years he had stated firmly that funds should go to social welfare rather that to settlements.
The polls show that in the next elections, scheduled for March 28, Sharon will be able to form a coalition with Peretz as his senior partner. If they do well in the elections, it is not inconceivable that together they will have even more than 60 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, so they can rule the country without making concessions to small parties who would join the coalition. But can they come to an agreed platform?
I think they can. On the social issues, Sharon, upon leaving the Likud, emphasized the need to fight poverty, and his No. 2, Finance Minister Ehud Olmert, has already announced the creation of a state commission to do just that. This is in stark contrast to the harsh capitalistic policy of Netanyahu, who was finance minister until he left the cabinet in August.
On the peace issue, it seems that Sharon and Peretz differ, but actually, Oslo and the road map are established on the same principle: Palestinians will gain sovereignty, on the condition that Israelis gain security. Another difference seems more difficult: Sharon prefers unilateral moves, while Peretz endorses a resumption of talks with the Palestinians. This gap will also be bridged, first, because unilateral steps have exhausted themselves with the departure from Gaza, and second, because of American impatience: It took U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to bang some heads together in her last visit in the region to settle the issue of the passages from the Gaza Strip, which up till then looked insoluble.
Once they form a government, Sharon and Peretz can set out to write one of the most important chapters in the history book of Israel: charting the permanent borders of the state, and simultaneously, making Israeli society more just.
They should look back to another period, between 1984 and 1990, when Israel was ruled by a national unity government headed, alternately, by Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud and Shimon Peretz of the Labor Party. Such an odd couple could have meant nothing but trouble, yet these two managed to pull us out of most of Lebanon in 1985 and, no less important, to rescue Israel from a terrible financial crisis. On the main issue, however, that of the peace process, they differed sharply, and this brought a stalemate.