chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-israel.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed -> www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-israel.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed
After polls closed, Sharon said he would seek a "broad-based national unity" government -- one that presumably would include the defeated opposition Labor Party, which campaigned on a pledge to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Sharon said he would "turn to all the Zionist parties to join a broad national unity government" that would have the same guidelines has his previous coalition. However, Sharon did not mention Labor by name and did not offer any policy incentives that might persuade Labor to renege on its campaign promise not join a Sharon-led government. Amram Mitzna, who led Labor to its worst defeat in history, reiterated his refusal to join a Likud-led government after congratulating Sharon on his victory. Even without Labor, Sharon is expected to face difficulties in forming a stable government from the myriad political and religious factions, especially amid the turmoil of the Palestinian uprising. Despite unrelenting violence with the Palestinians and a crippling economic crisis, Likud won 36 seats in the 120-member parliament _ up from 19 seats in the outgoing Knesset, according to Israel TV's exit poll. The bloc of rightist and religious parties that support Sharon's tough stance against the Palestinians won 70 seats overall, the TV said. Perhaps the big winner was Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a pugnacious journalist-turned-politician who heads the Shinui Party, which has vehemently opposed joining any coalition with religious parties. Shinui was projected to emerge as the third largest with 15 seats. The Yugoslav-born Lapid, 71, called on Mitzna and Sharon to join him in a "secular unity government" excluding religious parties. Once-dominant Labor, which called for a speedy pullout from most of the West Bank and Gaza, won only 18 seats, compared to 26 in the outgoing parliament, the TV said _ a reflection of Israelis' anger at the failure of a decade's peace efforts with the Palestinians which the party led. Two other TV networks ran similar projections based on phone polls which showed the same trends with slightly different results. Partial returns were expected to trickle in overnight, with final results by Feb. The projections were greeted with dismay by Palestinians. The campaign failed to ignite excitement, both because Sharon's victory was considered inevitable and because Israelis have despaired of a quick fix to the bloody and debilitating conflict. No Israeli government has served a full four-year term since 1988, and Sharon's coalition survived less than two years. Sharon was elected several months after fighting erupted, in a landslide over Labor's Ehud Barak, who had offered the Palestinians a state in Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank. Negotiations fell apart over the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority and its economy have been largely crushed, and Israel too has suffered: Tourism collapsed, the economy contracted, inflation and unemployment shot up. Sharon has kept Israeli troops in Palestinian cities and towns for months, saying they will remain until Palestinian attacks have been stopped and the militants crushed. Since Sunday, Israel's security forces barred Palestinians from entering Israel in an effort to prevent terror attacks -- but violence flared in the Palestinian areas, where seven Palestinians were killed. Three died in a powerful explosion at a Gaza City house late Monday. Palestinians claimed an Israeli helicopter fired a missile; In the West Bank town of Jenin, troops shot dead four Palestinians in battles today, Palestinian hospital officials said. The army said troops fired on armed men in a series of clashes. The killings pushed the death toll since September 2000 to 2,071 on the Palestinian side, compared to 720 on the Israeli side. Labor also had trouble selling itself as an alternative because of its 20 months as Sharon's junior coalition partner, before it bolted in November. The investigations could dog Sharon in coming months -- but electorally, he appears to have ridden out the storm.
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